Want to buy a charging station or wallbox for your home? That is understandable! You don't want to charge an electric car only at your workplace or on the road, but also at home. A charging station at home not only brings convenience, but also cost savings, although this depends on the current electricity rates. Still, it will certainly be more favourable than charging at the roadside. Another advantage is that home charging stations are becoming increasingly popular, and if you have solar panels on your roof, it is even more attractive to charge your EV at home.
In this blog we will discuss what is involved in the installation of a charging station or wallbox and we will also briefly look at which providers there are for home charging stations.
Step 1: the charging station and the meter box
It is important to first determine whether the car can be charged with 1-phase current or only 3-phase current. Our advice would be to charge with 3-phase current anyway, because this is more powerful and the car can be charged faster with it. The first step is to check your meter to see whether you only have 1-phase current or also already have 3-phase current. If you only have 1-phase power, you must request an upgrade to 3-phase from your energy supplier. This is often easy to arrange online or call your energy supplier for advice. Bear in mind that there is sufficient space in your meter cupboard and that it can often take a while before the change is made. So start the preparatory work in good time!
In older houses, this often concerns a single-phase connection, while in newer houses it usually concerns three phase wires, plus a neutral. If you do not know which connection you have, look in your meter cupboard. If the electricity meter shows 220 V or 230 V, you have a single-phase connection. If it says 3 x 220/230 V or 280/400 V, you have a 3-phase connection.
Step 2: the location of the charge point
Do you have room to install the charge point on your own land? Ideal, then you don't need to worry.
Don't have a place on your own property and want to charge from the meter box to a public car park? Then please bear in mind a few things. The cable may not lie across the pavement! There are special tiles with a gutter for cables and in consultation with the municipality it is sometimes permitted to place such tiles so that you can still charge your car. However, you must request an exemption from the municipality: Exemption for the General Local Government Regulation.
If the exemption is arranged, you still have to comply with the following:
- You have to install a charging point on your own property.
- The public car park must be directly adjacent to the pavement.
- The charging cable itself must be in good condition.
- You cannot reserve the public car park for yourself. It therefore remains available as a public car park; and it may also be occupied by someone else.
- When loading your car, you have to consider the neighbours and, of course, the pedestrians.
- The cable should be laid along the pavement as much as possible and a maximum of 10 metres should be left over the pavement. You must count on this from the boundary of your own property to the car.
- You must cover the cable properly with a cable mat so that other users of the pavement are not hindered by the cable and cannot trip over it.
- After use, of course, tidy up the cable and the cable mat.
Unfortunately, it can happen that the municipality rejects your application and you are left empty-handed.
Whether you want to charge on your own property or in a public car park, it is always important that the cable from the meter box can reach the charging station properly. Can the cable be run outside through the crawl space, for example, or do you have other options? Also measure how long the cable needs to be from the meter box to the charge point, bearing in mind that it needs to rise about 1.5 metres from the ground.
Step 3: choose a charging station or wallbox
As you may have seen, there are many suppliers of charging stations and wall boxes. Which one fits the bill in terms of price, appearance and, of course, technical specs? The most important thing is to decide whether you want a single-phase or three-phase charging station. We recommend that you immediately choose a 3-phase current charging station, as this is the most future-oriented and allows you to charge your car faster. With 3-phase you have 3 x 230-volt sockets. Another important factor is the capacity of the charge post. If you have the choice, 22 kilowatts is a safe choice for the future.
The difference between a charging station and a wallbox is as follows: a charging station is a separate pole, a wallbox is a charging point on the wall of your house. Otherwise, there is no difference between the two chargers.
Other things to consider are whether you are the only one who will be using the charge point or whether several cars will need to be charged. Also look into the possibility of dynamic load balancing which ensures that there is a correct balance between the power consumption in the home and the power consumption for charging the car. This can prevent the fuses from tripping when you are charging your washing machine, microwave oven, dryer and car, for example. This is certainly the case if you are using single-phase current.
Step 4: Installation of the charging station
It is now time to install the charging station or wallbox. As mentioned earlier, you must install an extra group in the meter box and this is a job for which most people will hire an electrician. If you do the installation yourself, make sure you know what you are doing because you are working with high voltage. Safety first! There are various companies that supply and install the charging post/wallbox. This will cost you a few hundred euros, but you know that it will be done well, quickly and safely.
Costs of home charging station
If you want to install a charging station at home, you will find that there are many (online) providers. Roughly speaking, you can have a charging station at your home from about €550. This will still include the installation, although most sellers of charging stations also offer installation at an additional cost. That's convenient, of course, and saves you the hassle of research! We like convenience and will definitely recommend it. If we look at the charging stations and wallboxes offered by our friends from Laadpaal Outlet, for example, we see very nice charging stations from the brand Easee. These charging stations look smart and the brand is not the leader in smart charging stations for nothing. The smart technology behind the chargers enables the station to recognise the type of car it is connecting to and to adjust the required charging programme accordingly. This is ideal, of course, as it means you don't have to worry about the technical specifications and can just focus on the finer things in life.
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