Discuss Preparing for EV charger: cable and earthing before driveway? in the Electric Vehicles Advice Forum area at ElectriciansForums.net

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Hi,

Can I ask some advice on what to bury please?

This is the the front of my house in plan view. House at the bottom. Porch at the bottom left. Driveway at the top. There's a fence between the driveway and the lawn. The incoming electricity supply runs underground down the left hand side of the image.

Screenshot 2019-10-27 at 10.39.05.png

I'd like to prepare for EV charging. Any charger would likely be stuck on one of the fence posts that the horizontal red arrow sites between.

I had an outside socket installed to the side of the porch on a dedicated 6mm^2 radial when internal refurb work was done. This is on an RCD.

This follows the yellow route from a CU under the stairs clipped to the wall under the stairs (just to the bottom left of the image), up the wall in the corner of the porch (clipped to breeze block then plasterboard over it), across the roof space of the porch (clipped to wall/rafters), then down the wall (between plasterboard and breeze block again) to an outside socket where the yellow/red arrows meet.


I propose burying some 6mm^2 SWA along the red arrows and sticking another outside socket on the end for the time being. Total run 15-20 metres from CU. A gratuitously oversized extension lead for vacuum cleaner / pressure washer / christmas lights for the time being.


Questions...

Earth for EV charging:

Googling says house was likely TN-S originally but could well be T-N-CS/PME now.

The main supply cable entering the house is PILC, the cutout is ye olde black plastic (bakelite?) filled with tar, and the main earth is either a BS951 clamp around the lead cable (like this when I bought the place, so are all the neighbours, and no sign of any cable every having been soldered to the sheath) or the water pipe which was historically all copper in this area (and bonded in every property, though they've since broken the continuity to the street in most by fitting a plastic water meter). Location of water pipe is marked blue in image above.

Q: Should I drive earth rods in next to the fence post to provide an earth for an EV charger whilst suitably burly folks are on hand and the ground is sopping wet - or leave it for when a spark comes / if at all?

Q: Does this need to be a certain distance away from the copper water pipe that's connected to the house earth? That might say run the SWA to the right hand post or even all the way to the right hand side fence rather than the left hand post for example, which would be good to know before laying a lawn!

For what its worth the soil is very definitely clay. 3 feet of clay that where covered by paving is permanently soggy. Below this is sand/gravel that is significantly drier.


Thanks
 
Loads of threads on ev. Do a search.

TBH you are opening a can of worms with this one. There are so many issues and regulations surrounding ev they brought out its own COP.

id advise doing the course or at least buying the COP before proceeding.

I’ve done the course and have the COP and still I’m reluctant to do them.
 
Dead right, i avoid unless its most favoured clients etc. Anyway just done one today, new regs for this year and it took much research to figure out what the charger can do to meet regs and what i had to do. So, do you need a rod or not, see charger, what type of RCD ? Type A, Type A -EV Type B, trying to get confirmation before parting with a shed load for a TP RCD was too hard. Do you go back to previous installs and bring up to current regs ?......mmm this is a tough one. For the few that i have done, i probably will re-visit.
Anyway to the OP, needs a dedicated cct, may need a Rod and may need an expensive RCD, it really depends what charger you intend to install.
 
If it was me and I planned to install a cable for use at a later date I would probably go with 6mm SWA to be safe and run an earth tape in the trench with it, no messing around with pesky rods etc. But this is pure guess work as I don't know the specifics of your property or installation so don't take this cable size as gospel.

But as others have pointed out, EV charging points are a complete pain at the minute and will be until the industry and technology settles down a bit.
 

Reply to Preparing for EV charger: cable and earthing before driveway? in the Electric Vehicles Advice Forum area at ElectriciansForums.net

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