Discuss Chargemaster EV charger in the Electrical Wiring, Theories and Regulations area at ElectriciansForums.net

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mattg4321

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I went to a job today for a long standing customer of ours who had an unrelated problem.

While I was there customer asked me to look at the above charger that had been fitted in their car port. Whoever installed it - possibly Chargemasters in house team did a few things that were either clearly wrong or some that didn't seem right to me. I don't have any experience with fitting EV chargers.

It was apparently fitted in June on the recommendation of BMW. Customer mentioned the guy had to come back and "change something in the consumer unit" at the house. The car port is around 30m away. That set alarm bells ringing for me and I also didn't see a rod so I thought I'd have look.

Supply to car port in 4mm XLPE and part 4mm T&E. 32A RCBO sitting on top of consumer unit. It had been swapped for a 40A RCBO. Think we all know 4mm T&E is not rated to 40A. Charger rating plate says 30A. Guess it had been tripping the 32A RCBO so he swapped it out. The car port also has a few lights/general use sockets.

The earthing system is PME. No earth rod - they had used the exported earth for the EV charger. I'm pretty sure thats now a definite no in 18th? However I'm not sure where you would stand under 17th regs? I've come across quite a few, probably 10-15 EV charging points at peoples houses in the past year or so. I'm yet to see an earth rod!
 
exporting the PME is permissible under the 17th if no other option is reasonably practical.by sounds of it they couldnt be bothered to fit a rod. in the 18th its made a clear no.
As for the cable, rcbo saga sounds as if the person was caught out, I always use a 40 amp mcb/rcbo for a 30/32amp charger. with some makes i use a type c.
Also a ev charger should be on a dedicated circuit and if more than one is on the circuit then they need to be smart with load balancing software built in. so if the same circuit feeds sockets and lights its a no no.
was this installed via OLEV grant? if so the DVLA/OLEV will be very keen to know of any non conformity with the regulations as they paid £500 towards it. If i recall chargemaster were NICEIC registered so they would be liable if chargemaster dont put any things right via the platinum promise. not sure about other schemes.
On the one occasion I have heard about a complaint using the Platinum Promise the NICEIC couldnt get the original person to put it right and they sent one of the field assessors who also does annual visits to look at it, they then agreed to pay somebody else to put right the shoddy wiring in the new extension.

Either way if it aint upto scratch then it can be put right at no cost to the customer, just need to make some enquiries.
 
Interesting, thanks for that.

Would've been easy to bang a rod in, and round here even with a 4ft 'twig' you usually get around 20 ohms. No excuse imo.
 

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