Charging point

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cituk

New member
Joined
Aug 11, 2017
Messages
4
Good afternoon,

I am/was planning on buying an i3 electric car and have been trying to sort a home charging solution before ordering the car and need to seek some advice about getting a charger installed outside my house. Quick summary:

I own my own home but not the land outside my house (in a new Barratt's development). Outside my house I have a 2 paving slab wide path way, a small piece of soil and my own allocated car parking space. I propose to put the charging post and EVSE in the soil by the parking space (so dig under the 2 paving slabs and connected to my power supply). That land outside my front door is ‘managed land’ (currently by Barratt who is still building on this site) and as such I needed to seek permission. At first they said no but after much pushing from my side they have agreed based on their email response below.

There is a lot of technical speak in the email response below so I wanted to get a view from anyone before I reply to them/give in! So interested in your views on the reasonableness of their response and can anyone propose any other solutions?

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Subject: RE: *EXTERNAL: Electric charging point for plot 132, 7 Quicksilver Street, Cissbury Chase, Worthing

Dear Mr x

Following on from my email of 22 August, I write to advise that I have now had the opportunity to speak with my Technical Director to look further into the feasibility of installing an electric car charging point near your home.

Following this discussion, this has highlighted several areas that would need further investigation, and I provide a synopsis of these details below for your information

· Advice would need to be sought on the terms and conditions for a wayleave to enable a cable to be laid underground from the house to the proposed charging point. This would require involvement from our legal advisors, whereby they would need to provide advice that would cover an agreement between the homeowner and the management company covering (but not limited to) responsibility for maintenance; removal and modification; rights of access; health and safety to third parties and insurances for third party liabilities.

· It is important to note that the homeowner would need to take responsibility for maintenance/replacement of the post and charging point should it become damaged etc. and consideration must be given to protecting the post from vehicular or other impact damage.

· The homeowner should prepare a proposal on this for Barratt Homes and management company approval.

· Once this advice is received and it is deemed feasible, we can then investigate the process for installation. However, at this point, we would require your confirmation that you would be prepared to meet the legal cost of preparing the legal documents.

Moving forward, once the above has been confirmed and agreed, the next step in the process would be:

· To convert an electrical feed from the house to the charging point, the homeowner would need to arrange for a qualified electrician to prepare a design/specification for our approval and the installation shall need to be fully compliant with IEE Regulations.

· We would need to provide a quotation for laying ducts from the house to the post to facilitate an armoured cable feed, and the installation once approved, to be shown on a drawing and provided to the management company and managing agents with the wayleave indicating the rights and obligations for access and maintenance.

· The homeowner may need to obtain construction details for the fabrication and foundation detail into which the post would fit including post protection to prevent vehicular damage.

· Once a technical specification in its entirety is agreed, the wiring; design; underground duct installation; means of protection etc. needs to be detailed on a drawing which is cross-referenced to the legal agreement covering the homeowner’s responsibility to maintain, replace etc.

· It is also important to note that the management company may wish to invoke a right to intervene if an emergency occurs and the homeowner fails to keep it in a safe condition and to recover any costs that arise as a consequence of the installation.

Therefore, as demonstrated above, this is not simply a case that we are saying no for ease, there are many factors that will need not only consideration, but further investigation and approval.

I can reassure you that Barratt Homes is committed to providing exceptional levels of service throughout your warranty, and will endeavour to facilitate this for you. We are prepared to investigate this further, however, we would kindly request your written acceptance of this process to enable us to proceed given the potential costs involved.
 
Looks to me that you have a green light. You are going too have to get an electrician to draw up the installation. I would guess that places that are familiar with these installs should be familiar.

I'm about to put one in my garage. This requires a 30 min trip to Lowes for me.

Good luck.

John-future i3 owner
 
The cost for the legal work may end up being excessive. The installation, while not technically hard, could run into issues and costs that could get messy. If all of the stars align, it might go smoothly. It may not be worth the expense if you can find an alternate place to charge the vehicle. It's a tough situation.

Is there any way you could install the EVSE on the siding of your unit, and maybe buy a longer cable to connect to the car?

In the states, there are some locales that offer financial assistance to install these things.
 
Seems like a lot of hoops to jump through just to be able to get an outlet near the parking space...This looks like it could be a very long, costly project?

Perhaps it would be easier and more cost effective to have an exterior power outlet installed to the exterior of your home and either just to extend an electrical cord from you home to the parking space or install an EVSE with a very long cord , and wind it back up when not in use?
 
sadly the issue with this is that the cable would ave to cross the path which is used by others so wold be a health and safety hazard. I have asked for a channel to be dug to house the cable but PodPoint think this might be as difficult to achieve as putting a post in!

Sadly close to giving up and buying a hybrid instead :-(
 
cituk said:
Sadly close to giving up and buying a hybrid instead :-(
We've owned an EV since 2012 and have always lived in apartments that we owned. But neither had electric power in our assigned parking spaces in their parking garages. We weren't happy living in our first apartment, so we didn't want to waste the considerable time and money to have a charging circuit installed in our parking space. The condo association wanted to work with us to make it happen, though, because they knew more was coming.

In our current apartment, I was the first resident to try to have a charging circuit installed in one of our parking garage parking spaces (that was summer, 2013). Again, the condo association was supportive, but the board felt that the House Rules needed to be changed to specify the requirements and responsibilities involved with installing a charging circuit, so that took 2 or 3 months. I found an electrical contractor who was trying to specialize in home EVSE installation, but he had never installed an EVSE in a condo parking garage and wanted the experience (his normal EVSE installation was a Tesla Wall Charger in a private garage). So he was great to work with but had no experience trying to get a commercial building permit for such a job. Getting the permit took almost 18 months! The Building Department was being way overcautious about permitting commercial EVSE installations, but one must play their game.

In the end, we overcame all of the hurdles and have been enjoying our EV and EVSE since November, 2014. So the time, effort, and expense was worthwhile. Don't give up too easily if you plan to live where you are for several years, at least. We just sold our last internal combustion engine (ICE) car (at least it was a hybrid). Driving an EV is so nice compared with most ICE vehicles, so I'll never go back. Go for it!
 
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