Apartment Charge Point Installation.

Remind me please, does the charge point have to be wired all the way back to the meter for apartments ?

My Brothers PCP is up n a few months and I'm trying to convince him to get an Ioniq !

Audi's are too old fashioned !

Gumbo

Convincing the management company to allow it will be the hard part.

Indeed and he knows it !

Marcusm

Deleted User wrote: »

Indeed and he knows it !

THis was discussed at an apartment block where I lived in LOndon. I don't know if any have ever been installed but it was regarded as a fairly simple process - the charge point would be a spur from general electrical service and a seperate meter would be installed for allocating a charge. These would not be supplied by the electricity company but would be an internal meter as was used for allocating the overall electricity charges between the various blocks. This removed the need for new cabling etc other than directly to the charge point.

I don't know if such meters are in use here.

Oh I'm sure 1000 reasons will be give why it can't be done.

Probably the No.1 " we can't take up a parking space" but it will still be used......

Dardania

Deleted User wrote: »

Oh I'm sure 1000 reasons will be give why it can't be done.

Probably the No.1 " we can't take up a parking space" but it will still be used......

On my submission to the CER a few months ago, I made a big deal about this issue being dealt with - akin to a legal right to an EV charging point should be ensured for all apartment dwellers. Let's see if the CER come back with any proposal there...

RE your brother's situation: what someone else on this forum did (forget who) I think is the best bet. They intercepted their own apartment supply at the main switchroom for the building, installed a small "splitter" board, that had two outputs: a MCB to the aprtment, and a RCBO to the EV charging point for their parking space.
Obviously, needs management company buy-in

zilog_jones

Deleted User wrote: »

Remind me please, does the charge point have to be wired all the way back to the meter for apartments ?

My Brothers PCP is up n a few months and I'm trying to convince him to get an Ioniq !

Does your brother have an allocated parking space? Might be slightly more of a possibility then.

I live in an apartment but fortunately have my own underground space with a personal storage unit directly behind it - and this has two 13A sockets in it. It seems to be tied to my meter (it's not directly under my apartment) and my Prius only has a 10A charger anyway so a 13A socket is fine - but I've never enquired about getting a proper charger installation, which I assume will be hassle. One of the various things that put me off getting a BEV...

Dardania

zilog_jones wrote: »

Deleted User wrote: »

Remind me please, does the charge point have to be wired all the way back to the meter for apartments ?

My Brothers PCP is up n a few months and I'm trying to convince him to get an Ioniq !

Does your brother have an allocated parking space? Might be slightly more of a possibility then.

I live in an apartment but fortunately have my own underground space with a personal storage unit directly behind it - and this has two 13A sockets in it. It seems to be tied to my meter (it's not directly under my apartment) and my Prius only has a 10A charger anyway so a 13A socket is fine - but I've never enquired about getting a proper charger installation, which I assume will be hassle. One of the various things that put me off getting a BEV...

In theory, those 2 no. 13A sockets should be fed by a 20A supply. That would be good for a 3.3kW BEV (so a 16A charge point)

liamog

Deleted User wrote: »

Probably the No.1 " we can't take up a parking space" but it will still be used......

Our management company tried the same, we're a house with unallocated street-side parking.

Lived here 5 years, and it's only been once or twice that we were unable to park directly outside the door.

I've a quote to install a pedestal charger, just waiting on the mgmt. company, I'd already convinced them to allow a cable guard across the pavement.

zilog_jones

Yeah, I was thinking that - technically shouldn't be too hard to implement, but the problem is more the bureaucracy involved in making changes to property I don't own (I'm renting). Anyway, probably not relevant to @Mad_Lad's brother's situation.

He has an allocated space but they changed it a few times for some mad reason.

I wouldn't see the problem because you're not wasting a space as they might see it, he'll still need a parking space.

My Brother got a reply form the management agency.

Basically they're saying it will have to go back to the meter and this is not feasible.

So is it really correct that this is not the case and a feed can be taken from any suitable supply and then metered separately ? and how likely are they to accept a 2nd meter and who would be responsible for this meter ?

And who can I put him in contact with to sort this out ?

Another thing is they are going on about health and safety which is ridiculous !

Typical resistance of management agencies !!!

Dardania

Deleted User wrote: »

My Brother got a reply form the management agency.

Basically they're saying it will have to go back to the meter and this is not feasible.

So is it really correct that this is not the case and a feed can be taken from any suitable supply and then metered separately ? and how likely are they to accept a 2nd meter and who would be responsible for this meter ?

And who can I put him in contact with to sort this out ?

Another thing is they are going on about health and safety which is ridiculous !

Typical resistance of management agencies !!!

Indeed sounds like typical management company resistance...
RE going back to meter and unfeasibility...there is possibly some truth in that statement.
What you want to do is replace the outgoer switch fuse /MCB per page 28 of this: [font=arial, sans-serif]www.[/font][font=arial, sans-serif]esb[/font][font=arial, sans-serif].ie/[/font][font=arial, sans-serif]esbnetworks[/font][font=arial, sans-serif]/ncp[/font]
with 2 MCBs - one to the apartment, one to a charge point.
It is eminently possible to do. May need modifications to the main distribution board to accommodate...but possibly nevertheless. Your brother has a legal right to read his own electricity meter - can he get down to the switch room, and maybe take a snap of the meter and area around it so we can see what the space allocation is? And if possible, who the original panel builder is - ringing them up and asking to add an MCB to an individual meter would give you a good steer as to actual feasibility. Could cost a few €100 to do the work.
RE taking a feed from another supply and getting another meter on it...this may be difficult to achieve in practice. Legally the management company cannot sell you electricity (only authorised sellers of electrical can e.g. energia, Airtricity etc.) so an additional meter would have to be from ESB Networks, and added to your brothers account. That would require modifications to the main distribution panel of the apartment building (including a shut-down of power to complete building) which would be disruptive...

Another way would be to petition eCars to install a charge point there, for anyone to use. would be pricey for your brother if they started charging...but would work.

RE health & safety concerns...there is some validity to it. If there is a management company meter, powering all of the basement & staircores, it is an expectation that by isolating that supply, everything in the management company demise is not active. And you can send an electrician or any other trade to do any work necessary without fea rof snagging a live cable.
However, if there is another supply, off a different meter, running through the management company demise, for a car charging point...that would still be live.
The H&S concern is valid - how the risk is managed is the important bit. Maybe you could offer to install steel wire armoured cabling to the charging point, to mitigate risk to tradespeople should the management company power be isolated...
Another H&S issue is that the cable route from the meter to the car charger position might pass through different fire zones - you would have to seal up the cable routes etc...
A third H&S issue could be the risk of trailing leads if a tethered charging point were used. Maybe use an untethered?

These are all technical solutions to technical problems. It sounds like the management company just don't want to help. They work for the apartment owners - when's the next residents association meeting?
And if it were possible to meet the management company, walk down the install...maybe they would be happy to accommodate more so than by email / telephone rejection

n97 mini

Dardania wrote: »

On my submission to the CER a few months ago, I made a big deal about this issue being dealt with - akin to a legal right to an EV charging point should be ensured for all apartment dwellers. Let's see if the CER come back with any proposal there...

Councils also need to stop granting PP for houses where CP installation is near impossible, e.g. communal footpath separating front doors from parking spots. Either that or make cabling to a box in front of each parking space mandatory, but that also requires each parking space to be allocated to each house.

unkel

n97 mini wrote: »

Councils also need to stop granting PP for houses where CP installation is near impossible, e.g. communal footpath separating front doors from parking spots. Either that or make cabling to a box in front of each parking space mandatory, but that also requires each parking space to be allocated to each house.

Agreed. But I'd say that's a hell of an uphill battle before that's the norm. And then obviously only for new builds, not for existing apartments

If I didn't have my own driveway, I would not have bought an EV.

Dardania

Dardania wrote: »

These are all technical solutions to technical problems. It sounds like the management company just don't want to help. They work for the apartment owners - when's the next residents association meeting?
And if it were possible to meet the management company, walk down the install...maybe they would be happy to accommodate more so than by email / telephone rejection

The residents already pay the management company for electricity , for lighting etc so I'd imaging they'd read the meter and charge him a fee or it would go on the bill of everyone else lol.

I was told that a feed can be brought from that feeding the lights.

I was given the names of three companies who deal with apartment installations so I told him to get on to them and they can contact the management agency and arrange to meet them.

No they're not likely to allow it because it's in their nature to say no to everything even though he's paying them a substantial fee per year....... these management companies are only interested in making money !