Why to choose an accredited installer

Installing a charging point is not plugging an appliance into the wall. It is an electrical installation with its own regulations, its own protective devices and its own registration. Who does it shows little on day one and a great deal three years later. This is what is worth insisting on.

The protective devices that cannot be missing

A properly fitted charging point has a dedicated consumer unit. This is not a whim: ITC-BT-52 of the Low Voltage Electrotechnical Regulation sets out what is required for charging infrastructure. In practice it comes down to four things:

• Overload protection: a circuit breaker that trips if demand exceeds what was designed for. Sized for the charger, not borrowed from another circuit.
• Residual current protection: detects earth leakage and cuts the supply instantly. It protects people against direct and indirect contact, and it is the one that prevents the serious accident.
• Surge protection: voltage surges, from lightning or from variation on the grid, take out the charger's electronics and, at worst, the car's.
• Cables and conduits: the cross-section of the cable and its temperature rating have to match the real current. Conduits give mechanical protection and make it possible to inspect or replace without cutting into the wall.

On paper this looks obvious. In installations that come to us for review, what is missing most often is surge protection, along with an undersized cable.

Your consumer unit counts too

A charging point does not work in a vacuum. It hangs off the existing installation, and if that installation is marginal, the charger shows it up: it is the most constant and prolonged load the home will ever have.

That is why the first thing we do before quoting is look at the consumer unit, the available power and the route to the parking space. If anything has to be changed, it is in the quote from the start and not as an extra halfway through the job.

In the charger range all the prices are for the complete installation for that reason: they include the initial survey, the materials, the building work, the protective devices and the registration.

Dynamic load balancing saves increasing your contracted power

The question we get most is whether the electricity contract will have to be increased. In the vast majority of cases, no. With dynamic load management, the charger measures in real time what the home is using and adjusts its power so as not to exceed it.

Almost every unit we install has it. The Woltio Pro includes the measuring sensor in the price, as you can see on the Woltio Pro page.

The paperwork

A finished installation has to leave you an electrical installation certificate and a registration with the regional industry authority. Without those, the installation formally does not exist: it complicates selling the home, it complicates any insurance claim and it leaves a warranty claim with nothing behind it.

It is a part of the job the customer does not see and is worth asking about before signing. If a quote does not mention registration, it is not included.

In a shared car park

The shared car park adds a layer of its own: notifying the residents' association, routing from the meter room, and deciding whether the installation is for one owner or prepared for more neighbours to join. It is worth leaving it ready even if only one car charges for now. We explain it in installations in residents' associations.

What to ask before signing

• Is registration included? Certificate and registration with the regional industry authority, with the paperwork in your name when the job is done.
• Who carries out the work? An accredited in-house team or a subcontractor, and who answers if something goes wrong.
• What does the warranty cover and for how long? On the unit and on the installation, which are not always the same thing.
• Is the price fixed? With materials, protective devices, building work and commissioning inside it, not as open items.

A quote that answers these four questions clearly is usually also the one that holds no surprises. Ours are in the charger range, and the grants currently available for installing a charging point ES are deducted from the cost of the installation, so it is worth taking them into account when comparing.

If you want to run the numbers before deciding, in our calculators you can compare the running cost of an electric car against a combustion one and estimate charging time.