Potential new gaff and chargers

obi604

I potentially could be building a house. Already have 1 electric car, other car is Diesel

for a new house build, what would ye recommend in regard to home charger installs - To just install 1 x 7kW charger.

Suppose I’m Thinking of the future, when households could potentially have 2 electric cars etc, would 1 charger be enough

any comments or experiences welcome.

eagerv

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058274998/potential-new-gaff-and-chargers

We find 1 charger is loads for two cars. Each doing 18-20K pa.

Could probably manage a third car providing mileage wasn't too high..

Each car usually charges twice a week in our case, but we are flexible, the missus gets up very early and she can plug hers in for a few hours at night rate if mine is full which it normally would be by 6am.

Edit. For about 8 or 9 months of the year we also get some charge via solar by day.

obi604

Nice one, thanks for the info !!

KCross

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058274998/potential-new-gaff-and-chargers

One is obviously sufficient but two is obviously better! :)

What I would do is put in one and have the wiring done for the second one and just terminate it with an external socket. If you decide later that you want two charge points you have an easy job to swap the external socket for a charge point. Basically future proof the electrical work now.

So make sure that that external socket has its own circuit and capable of 32A. Don’t just tell the electrician to put in an external socket. Tell him what your plans for it are but just put an external socket on it for now.

And don’t forget to pull 2 Cat5e cables to both charge points. You need those for internet access for the charge points and CT clamps for load sensing. Not mandatory but cable is cheap so pull them now while it’s easy.

VikingG

Out of curiosity what is the max Amp load for a new house/connection these days? is 100A standard or is this something that has to be requested?

KCross

12kVA (60A) is the standard

16kVA (80A) if you ask/pay for it

Page 3 here: https://www.esbnetworks.ie/docs/default-source/publications/esb-networks-dac-statement-of-charges.pdf

ELM327

I'd get a second charger installed tbh. We have two EVs and use two chargers

I have 3*32a blue plugs and a 7kW Tesla wallbox. The blue plugs came with the house.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119970349#Comment_119970349

63a is standard, 80a is a cheap upgrade, 100a is an expensive upgrade.

ted1

Just get 2 that do load balancing. Some even work together in a master slave setup

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119970377#Comment_119970377

And be careful, when I got a quote for MIC upgrade to 16kva they changed the meter type on the job document to smart meter MCC16 so I cancelled in a hurry. Better 12kva on a day/night meter than 16kva on a mcc16!

obi604

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119969902#Comment_119969902

"What I would do is put in one and have the wiring done for the second one and just terminate it with an external socket. If you decide later that you want two you have an easy job to swap the socket for a charge point. Basically future proof the electrical work now.

So make sure that that socket has its own circuit and capable of 32A. Don’t just tell the electrician to put in an outdoor socket. Tell him what your plans for it are but just put a socket on it for now."

Whats the difference between the 'outdoor socket' and 'socket'?

KCross

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119971594#Comment_119971594

No difference, same thing (I've edited the post if that makes it clearer).

What Im saying is that you tell the electrician to put in the cable now for the 2nd charge point and just terminate it as an outdoor socket in the meantime. Just make sure its on a dedicated circuit capable of 32A so that a charge point can use it in future.

If you just went to the electrician and said "Put in an extra outdoor socket" he would probably just loop it off another circuit inside that wall in which case it would not be suitable for a charge point later and you would have to run a new cable and all the hassle that brings.

Alkers

I wouldn't both with the wiring for the second charger, run a duct for the one charger so you can do another cable run if needed

Corporatemarky

Arguably no as that would be some years away. However for future-proofing then perhaps yes. One to check out the price of one charging point vs 2. If good economies of installing 2 v 1 then poss worth doing. Ask your planned electrical specialist or QS / Advisor if you’re using one. Standard installation prices unlikely to reduce from current €1,100.

Corporatemarky

And if you didn’t mind looking at a redundant charge point for a number of years..

KCross

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119971635#Comment_119971635

Dont put in a second charge point but do put in the wiring for it, as that's the hard bit to do later but is relatively easy during build time.

Corporatemarky

Great advice 👍👍👍👍