It’s not unusual to be approached by a homeowner who has been told by various national contractors, energy companies, blokes down the pub and so on that they can’t have an EV charger installed at their home.
How so Luke?
Great question. Glad you’ve asked.
Positioning and reputation.
When folks speak to those companies previously mentioned, those who have huge advertising budgets and quick-skilled installers with very strict install methods they often can’t be helped if they require anything more than a ‘standard install’.
Often at the point of speaking to these companies they often already have their EV and may be using workplace charging (which employers use as a an incentive to persuade staff from the comfort of their sofas) or they’ve just accepted a new job with a nice new company car in the form of an EV and work have even offered to pay for the installation of an EV charger – but alas, the big energy company says ‘iT cAn’T bE DoNe’.
So anyway. Where was I?
A had a young lady book a survey with me at the end of 2023 with a huge dilemma – their garage is not viable to get power to from their mid terrace home and they’re stuck using public charging. However, the pricing has increased so much it’s as expensive to charge publicly than it was to run their ICE car – which did 650 miles to a tank of fuel.
What did the prospect do before stumbling on your humble narrator?
Spoke to 2 energy companies and a local installer who all made her jump through online surveys, video calls and giving her inside leg measurement before telling her it couldn’t be done ‘cos reasons’.
After calling a number of local companies she found my website called me panicked – I told her to book a survey “if it can’t be done, I’ll refund you in full but if it can do done, I can do it”.
I attended 2 days later and soon realised the main intake was under the stairs in the very middle of the house with the kitchen behind it to the rear and the WC and cloakroom to the front of it.
With a huge run down a shared alleyway to the rear, and off-street parking available at the front of the property this looked like the only viable location for an EV charger.
We’d need to go through the WC to get to the front of the property (which they were fine with) but getting to the WC was the hard bit as we had a false wall under the stairs we needed to get through and then the underside of the staircase too.
2 weeks later on the day of installation, a local builder and I descended on the property. We had the false wall cut out, cable pulled through from start to finish, trunking fitted in the WC at low level and the wall reinstated and tidied up before lunchtime, with me staying behind to do the connecting and commissioning before handing the EV charger over and demonstrating how it operated.
