New house build advice regarding car chargers

Mooooo

Hi there, brother is going building in the new year and was wondering what would be the handiest way or what research would be best to look at to future proof for electric cars? He doesent have an electric car but seeing as it will be a two car house in a rural location and they both will be doing enough mileage to save a bit on fuel it would be a good option for them when it comes time to change.

The best way to future proof the house is to find out how much the three phase supply would cost. If that is not possible try to minimize usage of electricity i.e. no power showers or electric heating. Then just get an 80 A main fuse which will allow two cars to charge at 32 A each.

Installing a pair of 6 or 10 mm2 supply cables from the fuseboard near a suitable location for chargers would be great. If three phase supply is specified those cables should be 6 mm2 three phase ones allowing up to 22 kW per charging point.

unkel

The only thing you need to do is to do wiring from your consumer unit to a suitable place on your outside wall for your chargers. I would recommend wiring for 2 chargers. Unless you have a really long run of cable from your consumer unit to the location of the future charger (>10m) you should use 6mm2 T&E cable

KCross

Install two standard independent external 3 pin sockets at the appropriate points on the external wall to charge the two cars.

When he moves in he can just use them as external sockets. Make sure the sockets are around waist height and not down too low.

When he switches to an EV he will remove the sockets and put up the charge points and not have the issue with chasing walls and running cables.

Just make sure that those sockets specify at least a 6mm2 cable each back to the consumer unit and they need to be dedicated circuits.
i.e. each cable is not tapped off any other circuit and they have a trip switch of their own. He will need to specify this in his tender docs to the builder as an electrician will not wire external sockets the way he will need it for EV's.

ted1

As above or alternatively run a cable duct and leave rope it in. Keep space for a breaker.

n97 mini

New builds need to have a renewable energy element to them. This possibly means his heating is some sort of heat pump?

The bigger the connection to the domestic grid, the more it costs.
Schedule of costs is on page 3 here.

Biggest home charge point is 7.2kW, so 14.4kW for two going full tilt. Then add more capacity for showers, heating, etc.

slave1

I'd recommend a pair of 10mm2 SWA cable buried underground and ready to make their way to a short pedestal charge point, cable can be left unterminated at both consumer unit and end point for the time being

stimpson

samih wrote: »

The best way to future proof the house is to find out how much the three phase supply would cost.

This.

After having in the spark last week and chatting about capacity he said that he thought 3 please would become the new norm when electric cars really take off.

KCross

stimpson wrote: »

This.

After having in the spark last week and chatting about capacity he said that he thought 3 please would become the new norm when electric cars really take off.

Can’t see that happening at all.
If 3ph supply is nearby and affordable then yes, but can’t see it becoming the norm any time soon.

It’s not required either even if you have 2 EVs and a heat pump.

stimpson

The Jaguar iPace has a 90kWh battery. That’s going to take over 12 hours @7.2kW. I think DC charging at home will have to be a reality sooner rather than later.

n97 mini

stimpson wrote: »

The Jaguar iPace has a 90kWh battery. That’s going to take over 12 hours @7.2kW. I think DC charging at home will have to be a reality sooner rather than later.

1. Never going to be filled from 0%
2. 300 mile range. No one does that without stopping.

KCross

stimpson wrote: »

The Jaguar iPace has a 90kWh battery. That’s going to take over 12 hours @7.2kW. I think DC charging at home will have to be a reality sooner rather than later.

Only an issue if they use all 90kWh each day. Certainly not the norm and that’s an €80k car... not the norm either. 40-60kWh is where it will be at for quite a while yet.

If 3ph is already nearby then fair enough but the reality is that it’s miles away for most houses and hence prohibitively expensive to put in.

optimal

Maybe consider cat5 cable from the feed before your customer unit to your charger. So Zappi type charger could sense input.

KCross

optimal wrote: »

Maybe consider cat5 cable from the feed before your customer unit to your charger. So Zappi type charger could sense input.

Good to know.
So thats instead of the Zappi sensing it wirelessly?

Do you get some additional attachments that you wire to the end of the Cat5 at the meter? And what type of connection is at the Zappi end? Or is it wired like ethernet at both ends and you just plug them in?

optimal

KCross wrote: »

Good to know.
So thats instead of the Zappi sensing it wirelessly?

Do you get some additional attachments that you wire to the end of the Cat5 at the meter? And what type of connection is at the Zappi end? Or is it wired like ethernet at both ends and you just plug them in?

Yes. There is a clamp like fitting clamped around the cable and that can be wired directly into the Zappi. If it’s not long enough then extend to a max 100 m with cat5/6. Might be as well to put in the cable though. If you want to use wireless then will need to get a “Harvi” which is wired to the clamp on the cable and connects to Zappi.

OP might want to think about setting all this up bearing in mind he might want to connect PV / wind turbine to Zappi and possibly battery and also that he might one day be feeding back from the car into the grid !!

Wildly Boaring

Personally no clue of EV future requirements but know a lot about groundworks.

Just run 3 or 4 ducts out to the point where you'll put any future charger.

In future you can just put whatever cable you want out. CAT 5 or whatever comes next. Domestic house so no major lengths to worry about heat in ducted v direct buried in power cables.

Deffo put in more than you need. In certain conditions power and telemetry cables need to be 300mm apart to avoid interference.