Infrastructure failure

Fastpud

Well it had to happen, took a chance and skipped a FC, arrived in Ballinasloe with less than 10km left in battery and the the FC here is down! Was showing up on eCars but won't start charging. ECars tried for 30 mins to get it charging but no luck.
Didn't bring charging cable with me so SC no use
Now stuck at side of road awaiting tow truck!
Oh the joys of electric car motoring

goz83

Hopefully your insurance covers it? Get a tow to the nearest charger.

NIMAN

Fastpud wrote: »

Well it had to happen, took a chance and skipped a FC, arrived in Ballinasloe with less than 10km left in battery and the the FC here is down! Was showing up on eCars but won't start charging. ECars tried for 30 mins to get it charging but no luck.
Didn't bring charging cable with me so SC no use
Now stuck at side of road awaiting tow truck!
Oh the joys of electric car motoring

... and this is the type of story that will put off potential buyers....Ssshhhhh.;)

slave1

Where's your nearest DC then? There's one in Athlone for sure

KCross

Fastpud wrote: »

Well it had to happen, took a chance and skipped a FC, arrived in Ballinasloe with less than 10km left in battery and the the FC here is down! Was showing up on eCars but won't start charging. ECars tried for 30 mins to get it charging but no luck.
Didn't bring charging cable with me so SC no use
Now stuck at side of road awaiting tow truck!
Oh the joys of electric car motoring

Would you be able to get to an SCP and get a charge cable for that? Might be quicker than waiting for a flatbed?

As a matter of interest, Why didn't you have that cable with you? I carry the SCP cable and granny cable all the time for this very reason.

Fastpud

slave1 wrote: »

Where's your nearest DC then? There's one in Athlone for sure

Truck brought us to Galway airport.
Big thanks to 11G leaf who unplugged to allow me get 5 minutes charge to get into Galway city

Fastpud

KCross wrote: »

Would you be able to get to an SCP and get a charge cable for that? Might be quicker than waiting for a flatbed?

As a matter of interest, Why didn't you have that cable with you? I carry the SCP cable and granny cable all the time for this very reason.

Normally I don't bring the cable unless I am planning on using SCP, and as I wasn't planning to do street charging......
Also as I have the 3,3kw charger the SCP would of taken ages (cue MadLad re 6.6kw! 😀 )

I know that it was really my own fault taking the chance skipping Athlone FCP and normally I wouldn't but did check in eCars an it was up so I guessed it would be ok.
This is the first time I have had any issues with public charging in a year of ownership with quite a few long range trips to various locations

isnottheword

You've had a lousy day so don't want to come across as too harsh. However, I wouldn't leave home without the cable - for any journey. It's a bit frustrating that Nissan should make an option out of the 6.6kW charger - should really be standard. It's painful enough waiting at that rate of charge on longer journeys but it sounds like driving the 3kW is impacting on your driving behaviour i.e. the thought of having to spend that long at an scp means you don't even pack the charger? If so, then what is already a bare bones network (with scp's) becomes weaker still for you as you're dependent upon the most minimal network of FCPs.

I cringe at the thought of having to spend €900 on this feature (I didn't buy new - so wasn't an issue for me - the seller didn't even know it had 6.6kW charging - so I didn't pay any extra). However, if anyone is deciding between spending the money on a Leaf Tekna (without the upgraded charger) vs. an Acenta model (with the upgraded charger), I think they'd be mad to spend the extra money on the former.

Many people come to the conclusion that they wouldn't need it - and there may be an element of that for some. However, on days like the OP had today (and other days when they probably decided against using the scp chargepoints because of the time involved), it's much better to have.

Fastpud

isnottheword wrote: »

You've had a lousy day so don't want to come across as too harsh. However, I wouldn't leave home without the cable - for any journey. It's a bit frustrating that Nissan should make an option out of the 6.6kW charger - should really be standard. It's painful enough waiting at that rate of charge on longer journeys but it sounds like driving the 3kW is impacting on your driving behaviour i.e. the thought of having to spend that long at an scp means you don't even pack the charger? If so, then what is already a bare bones network (with scp's) becomes weaker still for you as you're dependent upon the most minimal network of FCPs.

I cringe at the thought of having to spend €900 on this feature (I didn't buy new - so wasn't an issue for me - the seller didn't even know it had 6.6kW charging - so I didn't pay any extra). However, if anyone is deciding between spending the money on a Leaf Tekna (without the upgraded charger) vs. an Acenta model (with the upgraded charger), I think they'd be mad to spend the extra money on the former.

Many people come to the conclusion that they wouldn't need it - and there may be an element of that for some. However, on days like the OP had today (and other days when they probably decided against using the scp chargepoints because of the time involved), it's much better to have.

If I had the cable with me today I would of have to charge for a bout 3 of hours to get to Galway. I do agree 6.6kw is better however I had to decide 30kw or 6.6kw charging I couldnt get both so extra range won. (it would still win if I had to decide tomorrow)
Really until batteries are bigger there will always be a risk in longer journeys. It's is a is very very small if you are careful/ smart - just today I wasn't careful or smart and my luck ran out.

KCross

And it's still showing as online now. You would think they would have taken it offline on the map immediately when they failed to get you going.

DrPhilG

I know that expansion and even maintenance of the network is expensive and funds are low.

But the failure to accurately update the map is a disgrace.

jerryg

I have great sympathy for the op.but I think you may not leave your cables at home in future.
On the 3rd of November 2016 I travelled down to Ballinasloe to discover that the ccs fast charge was not working and guess what 3.5 months later its still not working.What does this say about maintenance?

I travelled down to Cashel from Dunshaughlin in my i3 stopping in Urlingford and Portlaoise on Sat without a hitch.
I was afraid to chance all the way to Cashel as I feared it might be down.

isnottheword

As per the last couple of posts, it's one thing that there are cost implications for maintenance/repair. However, if you have a customer service line already in place and a dynamic mapping of the network, there's absolutely no excuse for this not to be updated in real time.

If there's a concern over the reliability of outage reports, they could have a system in place with verified reports/yet to be verified reports - but information must go up there.

It's one thing not being able to depend on the network. It's another thing entirely if you can't depend on the information that's provided as regards the status of chargers on the network.

Fastpud

KCross wrote: »

And it's still showing as online now. You would think they would have taken it offline on the map immediately when they failed to get you going.

I said to the eCar rep on the phone to set it off line on the map, disappointed that it is still showing on-line
My guess. Is that it was a connector issue as I got the same error even when the cable wasn't plugged I to the car.

Bad luck OP, these things happen, you know people run out of petrol/diesel sometimes too.

The 6.6 Kw charger isn't just useful as a backup in case a fast charger is down , it's useful for charging full stop. It's saved me many times waiting at fast chargers on trips where I can arrive to my destination on one charge and wait 2-2.5 hrs for a return trip while shopping etc, get out , hop in the car and drive off. No waiting in the car 30-40 mins before or after shopping !

To get 90% on the DC charger can take 50 mins anyway in a 24 Kwh leaf especially in cold weather.

It's just a shame most manufacturers don't have more than 7 KW ac chargers, it's a waste of a fantastic 3 phase 22 KW Network.

unkel

What I don't understand about the governments EV policy is this. They give us €10,000 per car for buying an EV. Yet the cars are not tax free (would only cost €120 per car per year). Makes feck all difference I know, but there's a huge psychological factor about motor tax in Ireland. Imagine the bragging rights in the pub for having a zero tax car!

And if the government even spend a few grand per EV per year extra on maintenance & installation of FCP, surely this would help nudge people in the direction of EV ownership

Always amazing to see Bjørn Nyland's videos from Norway where there are FCP literally everywhere, several per location and they always seem to work. Norway is leading the world in EV ownership. And that's in a country that went from poor to rich because of their own oil resources!

Fastpud

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Bad luck OP, these things happen, you know people run out of petrol/diesel sometimes too

Have done that 3 times as well in an ICE with a faulty petrol gauge - maybe it's just me 😬

I fully agree that given the battery size there really needs be be bigger standard chargers in cars, Also can't see how Nissan can justify a €900 premium for the 6.6kw

unkel

Your post reminds me of the other thing I don't understand about the governments EV policy. The give us a free charge point installation, yet it is only 16A (almost all EV can home charge at 32A these days). What is obvious is that nobody at government level really knows or cares about EV. Which is disgraceful.

stesaurus

unkel wrote: »

Your post reminds me of the other thing I don't understand about the governments EV policy. The give us a free charge point installation, yet it is only 16A (almost all EV can home charge at 32A these days). What is obvious is that nobody at government level really knows or cares about EV. Which is disgraceful.

That's clearly an ESB decision though. They don't want to be on the hook if a 32a charger causes issues. They don't want the hassle of investigating each premises for suitability or the additional cost of priority switches. Perfectly reasonable really with the state of some home's wiring.

unkel

Is it though? I see where you're coming from, but wasn't one of the questions you have to fill in when applying asking if you had an electric shower? 32A is fine as long as you don't have an electric shower.

Dardania

unkel wrote: »

Is it though? I see where you're coming from, but wasn't one of the questions you have to fill in when applying asking if you had an electric shower? 32A is fine as long as you don't have an electric shower.

less likely, but heat pumps for space heating are also big draws.
and some people have immersion heaters on night rate - they're only a few kW themselves....but there are a confluence of configurations that 32A is "risky" in
3.3kW x 8 hours of night rate gives the most common battery storage size...so there is some method to their madness. They should probably review their decision as higher storage capacity batteries become more prevalent

The advice the ESB should give people is to throw away those 8-9 Kw electric showers and get a pumped only one and use the water in the hot water cylinder that's heated from the central heating.

Sure, there are people who need electric showers who have no central heating but there's a significant amount of people who do not and where electric showers are a massive waste of energy.

It could also be a possibility that the ESB don't want too many people charging at 6-7 Kw in the same estate of off the same local substation.

100 people charging at 6 Kw = 600,000 extra watts just like that !

200 people would be 1.2 Million watts !!!

I don't know much about the grid and how it works but I've a suspicion the ESB are a lot more concerned about the potential impact to the network than our house wiring !

CIARAN_BOYLE

[Deleted User] wrote: »

200 people would be 1.2 Million watts !!!

I don't know much about the grid and how it works but I've a suspicion the ESB are a lot more concerned about the potential impact to the network than our house wiring !

ESB are always under capacity at night time (its why they have dual rate meters where night time is significantly cheaper). They would love more night time useage.

slave1

unkel wrote: »

Always amazing to see Bjørn Nyland's videos from Norway where there are FCP literally everywhere

Norway generate their electricity from 98% renewable IIRC, perhaps they perceive these FCP as quite literally "free" (infrastructure aside)

CIARAN_BOYLE

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

ESB are always under capacity at night time (its why they have dual rate meters where night time is significantly cheaper). They would love more night time useage.

Indeed they do have a lot of capacity at night but the thing is can the local substation take an extra 1.2 MW ? that's a lot of extra juice , most homes don't have that amount of power (6-7 KW ) going for any length of time never mind a few hundred homes.

KCross

Deleted User wrote: »

Indeed they do have a lot of capacity at night but the thing is can the local substation take an extra 1.2 MW ? that's a lot of extra juice , most homes don't have that amount of power (6-7 KW ) going for any length of time never mind a few hundred homes.

Read the report and you will get your answer.

http://www.cer.ie/docs/000413/CER16286b%20ESB%20eCars%20Pilot%20Project%20Report.PDF

It seems the system has plenty capacity and infrastructure right now for your scenario, even upto 400,000 EV's. We are at, what, 3000 EV's!

goz83

unkel wrote: »

Is it though? I see where you're coming from, but wasn't one of the questions you have to fill in when applying asking if you had an electric shower? 32A is fine as long as you don't have an electric shower.

????? Get rid of the electric shower???? WTF?

2 Adults, 5 kids. I am adding an under the stairs washroom (wc/sink/pump shower) to take the strain from the one and only bathroom, which has the electric shower. Can an electric shower not be used if a 32A charging unit is in use?

KCross

goz83 wrote: »

????? Get rid of the electric shower???? WTF?

2 Adults, 5 kids. I am adding an under the stairs washroom (wc/sink/pump shower) to take the strain from the one and only bathroom, which has the electric shower. Can an electric shower not be used if a 32A charging unit is in use?

On a standard domestic connection (12kVA) you would be exceeding the ESB's recommended current if you had a 9kW shower and a 6.6kW car charging. It might run but you could also blow the ESB fuse which they frown on.

You need to get the enhanced supply (16kVA) or use a priority switch so that only one of them is on at the one time or else use a 16A charge point.

This is the ESB Networks enhanced supply form:
https://www.esbnetworks.ie/existing-connection/increasing-decreasing-supply/domestic-user

PAKNET

The ESB supply fuse is typically 63A.

A typical 9kW shower draws ~39A on max output.
That leaves headroom of just 24A on the supply - so no headroom for a 32A charger.

Even with a 16A charger you only have about ~8A of headroom if charging from near empty and running the shower hot at the same time (cold winter evening for example).

So a scenario you come home on a cold night, pop the near empty car straight on charge, stick the kettle or oven on then pop up for a quick shower - you'll be doing well if you don't blow the supply fuse.

NIMAN

unkel wrote: »

Your post reminds me of the other thing I don't understand about the governments EV policy. The give us a free charge point installation, yet it is only 16A (almost all EV can home charge at 32A these days). What is obvious is that nobody at government level really knows or cares about EV. Which is disgraceful.

This, and what DrPhilG said earlier.

If the authorities are half serious at all about EVs catching on, they need to make sure that if they have a limited network of chargers, they are at least all functional as much as possible.

Arriving at one and finding it down is simply not good enough. Especially if you are told its working beforehand.

slave1

unkel wrote: »

Your post reminds me of the other thing I don't understand about the governments EV policy. The give us a free charge point installation, yet it is only 16A (almost all EV can home charge at 32A these days). What is obvious is that nobody at government level really knows or cares about EV. Which is disgraceful.

But the 16A is actually quite logical, most homes have an electric shower so for the Gov/ESB to offer a 32A when the prudent implication then is a series of extras e.g. greater supply to the house or priority switch, which would be borne by the customer would not be perceived well.
I think the 16A is fair, already getting financial support for a new EV anyhow, offer the 16A and if the consumer chooses to bump that to 32A then that's their decision and up to them to take the additional costs....

KCross

KCross wrote: »

Read the report and you will get your answer.

http://www.cer.ie/docs/000413/CER16286b%20ESB%20eCars%20Pilot%20Project%20Report.PDF

It seems the system has plenty capacity and infrastructure right now for your scenario, even upto 400,000 EV's. We are at, what, 3000 EV's!

Yeah there's ample capacity for charging xxx number of electrics in total but I'm talking locally.

If you have an estate with 100-200 electric cars that's a hell of a lot extra strain on the local supply.

They may have plenty of capacity at night which is fine but it's useless if it can't be delivered to the charge point or if the network struggles.

Remember it wasn't that long ago the ESB were pleading with people not to use so many Xmas lights , but now since most of them are LED it's not an issue.

slave1

slave1 wrote: »

But the 16A is actually quite logical, most homes have an electric shower so for the Gov/ESB to offer a 32A when the prudent implication then is a series of extras e.g. greater supply to the house or priority switch, which would be borne by the customer would not be perceived well.
I think the 16A is fair, already getting financial support for a new EV anyhow, offer the 16A and if the consumer chooses to bump that to 32A then that's their decision and up to them to take the additional costs....

I don't have a problem with the ESB installing 16 amp evse, however, when I absolutely insisted that I wanted a 32 amp EVSE they said I can't have it and that is that and when I said I would pay the extra I was told that They still will not do it.

I have no electric showers etc so it's a non issue.

goz83

goz83 wrote: »

????? Get rid of the electric shower???? WTF?

2 Adults, 5 kids. I am adding an under the stairs washroom (wc/sink/pump shower) to take the strain from the one and only bathroom, which has the electric shower. Can an electric shower not be used if a 32A charging unit is in use?

5 Children ! jaysus !!! :eek:

I said an electric shower is not needed in most cases and a pumped only is far less of an energy waster.

If you have central heating could you not use one electric shower for when/if hot water runs out or use the immersion ?

KCross

Deleted User wrote: »

Yeah there's ample capacity for charging xxx number of electrics in total but I'm talking locally.

If you have an estate with 100-200 electric cars that's a hell of a lot extra strain on the local supply.

They may have plenty of capacity at night which is fine but it's useless if it can't be delivered to the charge point or if the network struggles.

Remember it wasn't that long ago the ESB were pleading with people not to use so many Xmas lights , but now since most of them are LED it's not an issue.

You didnt read the report!

Im talking locally as well.

ESB Networks went into some detail on rural customers and housing estates and not just a basic "X EV's take Y kWh's therefore we have enough capacity". Its quite detailed. You need to read it.

Interestingly, its the rural customers seem to have the biggest issue, not the urban ones. Alot of housing estates have significant supplies into them that can take, IIRC, 40% penetration. In some rural locations if you are a long way from the substation you could suffer voltage drop if there were more than 4 EV's in the area and then an upgrade would be required in that area. Thats generally what they discussed and they said it could be easily done on an ad-hoc basis as the issues arose.

stesaurus

unkel wrote: »

Is it though? I see where you're coming from, but wasn't one of the questions you have to fill in when applying asking if you had an electric shower? 32A is fine as long as you don't have an electric shower.

Its the usual accounting for the lowest common denominator type thing. Someone may not have an electric shower now but there's no stopping them from installing one afterwards without giving proper thought. There's plenty out there who would also be willing to attempt a DIY job of that without having any knowledge of electrical draw between car, shower, toaster, kettle, dishwasher, dryer etc.
You can just imagine the headline of EV charger sets house on fire. eCars to blame for installing super high powered death charger. EV's are evil etc. etc.

KCross

KCross wrote: »

You didnt read the report!

Im talking locally as well.

ESB Networks went into some detail on rural customers and housing estates and not just a basic "X EV's take Y kWh's therefore we have enough capacity". Its quite detailed. You need to read it.

Interestingly, its the rural customers seem to have the biggest issue, not the urban ones. Alot of housing estates have significant supplies into them that can take, IIRC, 40% penetration. In some rural locations if you are a long way from the substation you could suffer voltage drop if there were more than 4 EV's in the area and then an upgrade would be required in that area. Thats generally what they discussed and they said it could be easily done on an ad-hoc basis as the issues arose.

That's interesting, we'll see.

Makes it less credible if that is true that they wouldn't give people the 32 amp evse if they want it and pay for the priority device if needed.

I think the ESB have installed 32 amp charge points for some people.

slave1

Didn't realise it was 16A or nothing, logic would dictate the 32A would be available at extra cost, I'm still not decided on 16A versus 32A Leaf but bought a 32A charger for flexibility/futureproofiing.

The charging network unfortunately let us down twice this weekend but in both cases there were other chargers available to save us from running out.

We did a trip from Dublin to Mayo on Thu-Sat. The trip west went without issues. On Friday I discovered that one of the two charging sites in Ballina was not working properly: It began charging but had stopped after a few minutes and when returning to the car after two hours we found out that the car had not charged at all. I tested the second port and it was behaving the same way. Reported to ecars (C9D45) the faulty unit. Got some interest from locals while charging on the other point, didn't see another EV on the trip at all so not many of them around in Mayo. Actually the only EV I saw at all was a 30 kWh Leaf in Carrick on Shannon.

On the way back I attempted a two stop strategy from Belmullet to Leixlip which almost worked. There is a 116 km stretch from to Castlebar to Longford which we completed (just) having charged our 24 kWh Leaf to 94 percent and driving at indicated 90 km/h. The road was wet but luckily the wind was not against us. Unfortunately on arriving to the DC fast charger in Longford it was out of action ("Charge not available", marked busy on the app) and we were running on a SOC of about 3 percent. I tried to ring to the support line at 5:15 but it just rang and rang, so they had probably had left at that stage. Anyway, we drove to the nearby railway station where the Leaf reported there was a charger but unfortunately the charger was actually on the other side of the tracks. Due to extremely low charge at that stage I walked around to find it and upon powering up the car we were straight to the turtle mode but made it over the bridge to the charger nevertheless. Luckily our 6.6 kW charger meant that we only needed to spend just over an hour to have enough juice to get to the Ballinalick from where a 80 percent charge took us comfortably back home.

On motorway near Maynooth got overtaken by an Ioniq. It did look nice in flesh and was probably consuming the same power at 120 km/h than us at steady 105. But, at the same time with the exception of the range, I have to say that a Leaf is a grand car to drive over long distances. It's very surefooted and the SVE seats are very comfortable. To drive it long distances definitely require careful planning and in ideal conditions about 1:30 extra time Belmullet->Leixlip compared to an ICE (two charge stops and slightly lower average speed when running). Alternatively using the northernly route the trip could be done at the speed limit with three fast charges at 30 minutes each. In our case the extra time spent on the AC charger added another hour to this.

KCross

samih wrote: »

I tried to ring to the support line at 5:15 but it just rang and rang, so they had probably had left at that stage.

I thought that was a 24/7 support line? Did I imagine that? Anyone know?


eCars seemed to have let the reliability of the map slip. Thats two instances in as many days now where the map doesnt match reality.

unkel

slave1 wrote: »

most homes have an electric shower

I hope not :eek:

With Mad_Lad here. Electric showers are useless extremely inefficient yokes.

Why use a sh1tty 9kW slurping electric shower when you have a super efficient gas boiler that's far more powerful (I think mine is 26kW) and cheaper to run? Stick in a 2 bar water pump and enjoy your showers :cool:

cros13

KCross wrote: »

I thought that was a 24/7 support line? Did I imagine that? Anyone know?

The eCars office answers the phone from 09:00 to 17:00 Monday to Friday and a third party call center takes over (same crowd Three use for business customer support) out of hours, passing on issues to on call engineers with whoever has the maintenance contract.

I've found things get unreliable around the switchover time of 17:00. For 15-20 minutes either side your call may not get picked up.

goz83

Deleted User wrote: »

5 Children ! jaysus !!! :eek:

I said an electric shower is not needed in most cases and a pumped only is far less of an energy waster.

If you have central heating could you not use one electric shower for when/if hot water runs out or use the immersion ?

My intention is to move the electric shower under the stairs, which would see it used much less. I have a 3.3 bar pump, so all I need is to install a thermostatic shower in the main bathroom, which will see the most use. Will be looking at thermodynamic heating system to keep hot water for the shower, as I wouldn't want to rely on the central heating, which is not regularly used, or the immersion, which is more expensive.

I think the priority switch would work fine for the EV scenario. An upgrade would not be necessary and I expect it wouldn't be cheap either.

KCross

cros13 wrote: »

The eCars office answers the phone from 09:00 to 17:00 Monday to Friday and a third party call center takes over (same crowd Three use for business customer support) out of hours, passing on issues to on call engineers with whoever has the maintenance contract.

I've found things get unreliable around the switchover time of 17:00. For 15-20 minutes either side your call may not get picked up.

Interesting.

I wonder is it possible that when its the 3rd party call center is "in charge" that the map doesnt get updated or, at least, is less reliable?

unkel

@goz83, with a family of 7, did you consider solar water heating? Had a high quality Kingspan 40 tube / 360l cylinder system installed myself last November and we're very pleased with it, even very decent performance on sunny cold days in winter, which was better than I expected.

KCross

goz83 wrote: »

My intention is to move the electric shower under the stairs, which would see it used much less. I have a 3.3 bar pump, so all I need is to install a thermostatic shower in the main bathroom, which will see the most use. Will be looking at thermodynamic heating system to keep hot water for the shower, as I wouldn't want to rely on the central heating, which is not regularly used, or the immersion, which is more expensive.

I think the priority switch would work fine for the EV scenario. An upgrade would not be necessary and I expect it wouldn't be cheap either.

Priority switch should work fine, all you need is to ensure that you time the car to complete its charge before you start showers in the morning. The priority switches arent cheap though.


On the thermodynamic heating.... its a good idea but if you already have an efficient heating system why shell out more capital for a new system? I presume you can turn the gas/oil boiler to just heat water(i.e. zoning) and not heat the whole system. The difference in running costs might not be enough to justify buying/installing a whole new system.... I guess what Im saying is run the numbers and see how long it will take to pay for itself.

unkel

We replaced our 13 year old boiler (efficiency 68%) 4 years ago with a very efficient (98% I think) Viessmann. It was actually cheaper to get the zoning in than not getting it done, because it qualified us for the subsidy (€600 or something like that)

isnottheword

I'm a bit confused as to where I lie with regard to priority switching - totally forgot to ask the sparks when he did my 32A install. I already had a priority switch in place between 2x electric showers. Will this also safeguard against either shower and charging concurrently?

KCross

isnottheword wrote: »

I'm a bit confused as to where I lie with regard to priority switching - totally forgot to ask the sparks when he did my 32A install. I already had a priority switch in place between 2x electric showers. Will this also safeguard against either shower and charging concurrently?

Only if he wired it that way.
More likely, if you didnt tell him otherwise, that he just added it "outside" the priority switch like any other socket.

Simple test... run a shower and the car charger at the same time.... do both turn on? If yes, the EVSE is outside the priority switch wiring and thus not protecting the main fuse.

Do you have a 6.6kW car?

goz83

unkel wrote: »

@goz83, with a family of 7, did you consider solar water heating? Had a high quality Kingspan 40 tube / 360l cylinder system installed myself last November and we're very pleased with it, even very decent performance on sunny cold days in winter, which was better than I expected.

I haven't been long looking into renewables, but it seemed that the thermodynamic system for hot water was the one making most sense.

KCross wrote: »

On the thermodynamic heating.... its a good idea but if you already have an efficient heating system why shell out more capital for a new system? I presume you can turn the gas/oil boiler to just heat water(i.e. zoning) and not heat the whole system. The difference in running costs might not be enough to justify buying/installing a whole new system.... I guess what Im saying is run the numbers and see how long it will take to pay for itself.

I have a Gas fired central heating system. It gets fired up maybe 2 times per day for an hour boost on the cold days and rarely more than that. To be honest, I have never even checked if it can just heat the hot water because I have always used the immersion if the gas wasn't going on and a bath was needed. Have done without hot water for the basins all my life...unless it was heated anyway. The washing machine and dishwasher are cold feed. I also have a stove, which I plan to replace with one that has a backboiler. This is used during the winter and I figured it would be a good idea to get the rads heated while it was burning.

The thermodynamic would only be used for hot water, considering the extra need for showers. I like the fact that it doesn't need sun light and supposedly provides hot water 24/7. I will have to really look at the numbers though and get to grips with what is currently in place.

Should probably get back on topic and revert to PM if there is anymore info or recommendations on this subject. Thanks

cros13

Not a big fan of the thermodynamic systems. The advantage in electricity consumption over an electric immersion is marginal at best. MCS in the UK has pulled government funding on them.

Probably the best solution out there is Solar PV. Simple and cheap, offset your household electricity usage and the car, divert any excess power to your immersion heater. No grant aid and no supports whatsoever in Ireland, but if you are willing to ignore the planning exemption limits they are the best solution.