He bought the charger himself. We did the part that matters.

A brand new EV in the driveway and a charger already bought. This is one of the most common EV jobs we do, and one of the most misunderstood.

He got in touch on the Friday. We came out and looked at it the following Wednesday, quoted on site, and installed it two days after that. Seven days from first contact to a working charger.

The site visit is the job

We do not quote EV charger installs over the phone, and the reason is visible the moment you walk up the driveway. What we are working out on that visit is where the charger is going to live, how far that is from the switchboard, what the cable has to pass through to get there, and whether the board can carry the load once it arrives.

We just went through the job with him, wanted to see the cable run, to see how far it was from the switchboard, to see exactly where he wanted it to go. We went through the scope of works with him, gave him the fixed price, tailored everything to his needs.

Michael, Narellan Vale

The quote was accepted 22 minutes after we arrived. Not because anyone was pushed, but because by then he could see the cable route, knew where the unit was going and had a fixed number in front of him.

What the install involved

The charger was a customer-supplied 32 amp single phase unit, mounted using the customer’s own mounting. We supplied and installed the circuit breakers, cabling, isolators and clips, then tested and commissioned it. Cable selection was done against AS/NZS 3008.1.1:2017, which sets out how to size a cable so voltage drop stays within limits over the distance it has to run.

That took the better part of five hours on site, which surprises people. A charger install is not a matter of screwing a box to a wall. It is a new dedicated circuit from the board to wherever the car parks, and most of the time goes into getting the cable there neatly and safely.

Buying the charger yourself

Plenty of our EV customers buy their own charger, and we are happy to install one. Two things are worth knowing before you click buy.

The first is that the charger you choose can change what the installation needs. A unit with load management built in can sometimes avoid a supply upgrade that a simpler unit would force. Our Hoxton Park job is the worked example. The second is that the hardware is rarely the expensive part. Cable run, board capacity and whether you are single or three phase will move the price far more than the badge on the front of the charger will.

Got a charger in a box, or still choosing one? Start with the EV charger installation page, or see what else we do as your electrician around Narellan.