Distribution upgrade?

[symcbean]

Two of my neighbours with electric cars (one Tesla, one Mercedes) tell me they have to get their distribution upgraded (cabling from meter to street) to support their EV wallboxes. All our houses were built in the 1930s but I'm guessing the wiring that was replaced doesn't date back to then. Should I expect to do the same?

 

[Alb]

Did their houses have looped supplies?

 

[symcbean]

No idea.
That doesn't mean anything to me. I did ask what power the chargers were rated at - they didn't know.

 

[bloggsy]

I'm going to hazard a guess and, as @Joe has said, your neighbours probably share their power cable so will have to get their power supply terminated in order to separate them.

There are very few cars and instances, where it's financially beneficial to get a wallbox charger that's greater than the standard 7Kw. However, I could be wrong and they are going for a 22Kw charger and completely re-vamping their power supply to incorporate its installation!

As for you, I think you should try and check your supply to see if you have a 'looped' supply or share your power supply with another property. If you do, you'll have to get it separated so you have your own power supply before you go for your own home charger.

Hope this helps!

Cheers

Bloggsy

 

[Alb]

 

[ARealHuman]

We had exactly this (same age house) - we had to have our driveway part dug up to install a new supply from the street to next door whilst we maintained the existing supply and the loop to next door was cut off at our meter. A bit of disruption as it wasn't all done in one hit, but now it's done and as you'd expect we don't notice any difference other than the piece of mind knowing that it's been sorted. There was no cost to us for this. A person up the road - same car too! - had the same work done.

 

[Les burrows]

Two of my neighbours with electric cars (one Tesla, one Mercedes) tell me they have to get their distribution upgraded (cabling from meter to street) to support their EV wallboxes. All our houses were built in the 1930s but I'm guessing the wiring that was replaced doesn't date back to then. Should I expect to do the same?

Best advice I can give you is get in touch with your local DNO ( district network operator) or if you are your using a registered installer to get the OLEV grant which you will need to do to get the grant get them to deal with the DNO for you they will come out and look at it and do whatever is needed to enable you to fit a charge point and there should be no cost to you, my house is looped from next door but was deemed OK by the DNO and has been fine for around 3/4 months now, but they did say that if my neighbour needed to fit a charger in the future they may have to change the cable then but for now it was OK so cross that bridge when we come to it
Les

 

[JCFlippen]

My DNO Western Power came out and upgraded 60amp fuse to 80amp. They would not go to 100amps because of incoming supply but said 80amps was plenty good enough for my needs. Unless cooking the Christmas turkey etc from midnight to 04.30 I think they are right. Smart meter fitting this week and Hypervolt Home 2.0 next week.

 

[chowbenter]

We had to have our lawn dug up to upgrade from our old 60A supply to 100A supply (1920's house) and as we were on a shared loop of three houses & so did they, Nightmare, Just glad we have great neighbours.

 

[micky]

My DNO Western Power came out and upgraded 60amp fuse to 80amp. They would not go to 100amps because of incoming supply but said 80amps was plenty good enough for my needs. Unless cooking the Christmas turkey etc from midnight to 04.30 I think they are right. Smart meter fitting this week and Hypervolt Home 2.0 next week.

hi jcflippen would be nice if you could give feed back on the hypervolt charger when you have had time to fully test

 

[Lovemyev]

If you are on a looped supply, then you will need understanding neighbours.
They need to agree with the fix.
They could be more affect than you.
If they are of a certain age, they may not want any of the disruption that comes with this process.
It can be explained that there CAN be benefits from getting in done, but it can be a hard sell to our older friends.
My guess ( given the age of your property ) is that you are looped.
But as stated above, the DNO are your friends in this situation.
Good luck .

 

[chowbenter]

If you are on a looped supply, then you will need understanding neighbours.
They need to agree with the fix.
They could be more affect than you.
If they are of a certain age, they may not want any of the disruption that comes with this process.
It can be explained that there CAN be benefits from getting in done, but it can be a hard sell to our older friends.
My guess ( given the age of your property ) is that you are looped.
But as stated above, the DNO are your friends in this situation.
Good luck .

Yes Good neighbours is essential unlike my friend in the next street who lives in a block of six shared loop houses, These old houses are built in alternate blocks of three & blocks of six Some of his neighbours refused entry to their property & fuse boxes. The DNO told him All or None. I bet those DNO teams have their work cut out with upgrading these old houses which are the norm around here, The housing stock is what it is. They are a great bunch of guys though & very helpful. All these houses have rear drives & off road parking too.

 

[symcbean]

Well, a bit of googling and I've now discovered what "looped supply" means (for anyone else reading this - its something of an oxymoron - it means more than one house sharing the same connection to the supply running along the street - https://www.ukpowernetworks.co.uk/internet/en/help-and-advice/documents/looped_services.pdf ).

After tracking down the right contact address (nobody told me it was going to be this difficult!) I got the leccy distribution map (for anyone else in the Scottish Power region - requestforplansscotland at spenergynetworks dot co dot uk) which confirmed I do have a looped supply. The supply comes into my house first.

Unfortunately we are not on the best terms with our neightbour after their german shepherd attacked my wife (apparently she upset the dog by being in our garden). So not sure what's likely to happen next, but I've got an electrician coming out on Friday to have a look.

 

[TiMoleseyEV]

Without wishing to appear too smug, i just had a Zappi installed for my new ZS. Our house was built in 1995 but the fuse was not marked. When UK Power Networks turned up, They found we already had a 100amp fuse, they put stickers on and left, so sometimes it does go smoothly.

 

[Lovemyev]

Without wishing to appear too smug, i just had a Zappi installed for my new ZS. Our house was built in 1995 but the fuse was not marked. When UK Power Networks turned up, They found we already had a 100amp fuse, they put stickers on and left, so sometimes it does go smoothly.

Easy call out for somebody there !.
Apply a sticker and leave.
A completely different world away from finding out you are on a shared supply with the neighbour from hell and your new EV is sitting at the dealer, awaiting collection !.
I wonder how many people consider purchasing an EV without checking on how they intend to charge it from their homes first ?.
I don’t think people take into account just how much power is required to power a wall box !.
Houses of a certain age, sometimes only had a couple of power points installed when they where first built.
So the incoming supply was large enough to share.
Today, is a completely different story of course.
A huge multitude of electrical items now made to help with our busy lives.
When I was a small child, my grandma’s house, they had NO electrical outlets upstairs and only ONE single 5amp round three pin socket in the living room.
This was used to power anything like the vacuum cleaner on a long extension lead when using upstairs !.
This did mean that my Grandad could watch the horse racing at the same time, on there black and white TV set.
The TV was feed with a coin slot box on the back!.
It was really funny when he was watching a race and the credit on the TV would run out, right before the horses crossed the line ! .
The electric iron was plugged into the ceiling light pendent in the front room.
This would occasionally blow the fuse wire in the consumer unit and had to be replaced, before you could finish the task.
Wow …. How times have changed.
No washing machine / electric shower etc etc .
I wonder what they would of though of cars powered purely by batteries !.

 

[RichardC]

Although our house was built in 1954 all of the electrics were upgraded in 2014 with a 100A fuse. However, as @Lovemyev says how many people consider all the facts re charging.

I have to admit that I did not but it has been a steep learning curve. Luckily we did not have a looped supply so everything is ok and good to go.

My Hypervolt was due to be installed today. However, it had not turned up at the installers yesterday. The electrician came today and did the wiring and he is returning tomorrow morning to install the unit.

 

[Alb]

Easy call out for somebody there !.
Apply a sticker and leave.
A completely different world away from finding out you are on a shared supply with the neighbour from hell and your new EV is sitting at the dealer, awaiting collection !.
I wonder how many people consider purchasing an EV without checking on how they intend to charge it from their homes first ?.
I don’t think people take into account just how much power is required to power a wall box !.
Houses of a certain age, sometimes only had a couple of power points installed when they where first built.
So the incoming supply was large enough to share.
Today, is a completely different story of course.
A huge multitude of electrical items now made to help with our busy lives.
When I was a small child, my grandma’s house, they had NO electrical outlets upstairs and only ONE single 5amp round three pin socket in the living room.
This was used to power anything like the vacuum cleaner on a long extension lead when using upstairs !.
This did mean that my Grandad could watch the horse racing at the same time, on there black and white TV set.
The TV was feed with a coin slot box on the back!.
It was really funny when he was watching a race and the credit on the TV would run out, right before the horses crossed the line ! .
The electric iron was plugged into the ceiling light pendent in the front room.
This would occasionally blow the fuse wire in the consumer unit and had to be replaced, before you could finish the task.
Wow …. How times have changed.
No washing machine / electric shower etc etc .
I wonder what they would of though of cars powered purely by batteries !.

You just described my childhood except we could only dream of having even a single 5A socket. One light pendant in each room was the totality of the electrical installation.
The TV or Radio was fed by a splitter from the light fitting and the iron was heated by putting it on a gas ring!

 

[Lovemyev]

You just described my childhood except we could only dream of having even a single 5A socket. One light pendant in each room was the totality of the electrical installation.
The TV or Radio was fed by a splitter from the light fitting and the iron was heated by putting it on a gas ring!

A lot of our younger members probably think we are joking, but seriously you cant make this stuff up !.
Yeah - I remember the double adaptor hanging from the living room light pendent !.
I can see my Mum standing on a chair, at her Mum's plugging in the iron.
The light bulb in one side and the iron plugged into the other.
They had a old valve set radio in the corner of the room, it would take about 5 mins to warm up and the music sounded like a pan of chips cooking !.
Happy days.

 

[Les burrows]

LOL just reading some off these comments here about the electrics we where all brought up with made me chuckle a bit , not sure of your ages me I’m 74 some of you must be around that to remember these things,my first TV was a 9 inch screen I think it was in a box about 3 ft square great big knob on the side which we never touched at first only had BBC1 but when another Chanel came along think it was ATV or Rediffusion then used this knob thing to turn from one to the other ,had a radio before that like a small suitcase it was and that run on a battery of around 90 volts use to take it to the local electric shop about once a mouth to exchange the battery for a fully charged one we used to have a coin meter for electric in my mums home and when she couldn’t find a shilling for the meter she would break the seal and take the shillings out that had already been put in to get the power back on but she was honest as the day is long my mum as she would put a 10 Bob note in the box to replace the coins for the meter man who came to Empty the meter every couple of weeks or so our iron would always be sat on the range near the fire and I’ve seen the odd shirt or two go under the mattress for pressing now I wonder if I’ve got enough shillings to charge my car tonight best go and check LOL
Les

 

[Alb]

I'm about a decade behind you Les so I'm describing life in the 1960s.