Thinking Outside the Meter Box: Outdoor Consumer Units for EV Chargers

one of the most contentious issues when it comes  to fitting electric vehicle chargers is if you can   put a small consumer unit inside the customer's  meter box now this is an incredibly convenient   location especially for existing installations  where it's difficult to get back to the consumer   unit that could be buried deep inside the house  however are you allowed to do it now we did   explore that in a previous video and I asked all  of the UK's DNOs for their opinion and they came   back with some pretty robust advice ranging from  absolutely not to not recommended now recommended   is certainly a grey area especially on a box that  is actually the customer's responsibility but   that option may not exist because if you open the  meter box it may already be full of equipment for   the electrical supply time clocks Henley blocks  and there is physically no room to add a consumer   unit in there now the NIC also weighed into  this argument after we put our video out there   and also came back with a absolutely not  recommended to put a consumer unit in there so   what choices do you have we've seen contractors  try to solve this in various ways including an   IP rated plastic consumer unit positioned next  to the meter box which at first appears a good   solution but then you need to think about the  materials that that consumer unit is built from   most are built from regular plastic whereas  the meter box itself is built from GRP so I   can withstand strong ultraviolet light for  the decades that it's going to be out there   so our plastic consumer unit might not be the  best option for longevity however we have also   seen contractors then buy a consumer unit and  put it inside an additional GRP enclosure which   is a great engineering solution but a little bit  expensive so we're quite pleased to see this new   solution from BG they've developed a whole range  of consumer units for the EV installer including   this one which is IP65 rated but is made from  die cast aluminum and the other great thing   about it is you can get it colour coordinated  with the BG Sync EV charger that we've fitted   in a previous video we're going to take a look  at how we fit this in our little demonstration   installation here to see if it's the right  choice for you oh wow it's almost fitted itself   um pretty neat installation well I think so  anyway the consumer unit a similar profile to   the meter box and a lot of these meter boxes now  are also painted to match the property so it'll   almost blend in and a lot of them on the side  return of the house anywhere so let's have a   closer look at the consumer unit itself again  a robust design inside there we can see the   gasket that helps us get the IP65 rating and some  options on the circuit protection one thing that   isn't an option all of these come with a surge  protection device which is obviously a great idea   if you think your EV charger itself probably  costs you a good few hundred pounds you might   want to protect that against power surges but then  think of the car that's attached to it certainly   tens of thousands of pounds so an option I don't  think any customer would refuse in terms of the   options for circuit protection you can have an RCD  protecting the outgoing circuits or as we've got   here a double pole at RCB off just for the EV  charger the other circuit breaker there is the   over current for the surge protection device you  can also have this just with an MCB fitted to it   but obviously this depends upon what protections  built into the EV charger and the cable route that   you're taking to the charger itself whether it  needs additional protection so let's have a look   under the cover see how we've wired it so to  get the cover off we just have to remove the   four screws that are hidden behind these little  rubber bunks that help maintain the IP rating another great design feature all those screws are  captive common with a lot of other BG consumer   units you really only need one screwdriver for  most of this installation the cover screws and all   of the terminals on the MCBs the main switch and  the bus bar all slotted pozi 2 we've used EV Ultra   cable to wire out to the EV charger which brings  up the question of that data cable and how you   route that back to the meter box in this instance  to connect a current transformer so we strip back   probably a meter of excess on that cable and  I've looped the data cable from the land out   of the charger and then back down this flexible  conduit and into the meter box lots of cable entry   options on the consumer unit itself we've gone in  underneath here it's a robust design again nice   gasket seal around it uh even on uneven walls this  box isn't going to twist so I don't think you'll   have any trouble uh making those connections to  fix it to the wall there's some screw knockouts   in the back you just have to remember to put the  waterproof screw caps on them when you fit the   installation again to maintain that IP rating so  deep breath as we go into the meter box again a   grey area on how you make your cable entry into  the meter box itself we've gone in this corner   here because it was just a suggestion in the  molding of the box itself that there was a an   entry point there um so we've come in there with a  conduit gland we drilled a bigger hole underneath   um so we could bring the conduit through and then  a 25 millimeter hole in the top there to terminate   the gland we didn't go in uh these points here  where the uh there's a hockey stick would come in   because these are wafer thin so that's probably  not the best option we have seen examples where   people coming in the side but again you know  trying to maintain or keep water out of these   meter boxes can be a bit of a challenge because  what the last thing you want to do is get water on   the chipboard because they just turned to Weetabix  and you need to replace everything in there um so   what we added we've added in um a Henley block  so double pole Henley block there intersecting   the existing tails for the property and earth  block and then we've also terminated our current   transformer so we brought in the CAT5 that's part  of the EV Ultra cable and then made a heat shrink   joint there to the two cores that go off to a  current transform that you'd typically have to   do when you've got to do some load management as  part of the install so while we're on the subject   of tidying up our EV installs obviously keep the  customer happy nobody wants the house looking   like a factory and now in the past we've tried to  disguise the cable fixings with these ones from   d-line here that create that almost invisible look  but one thing you can't disguise is a black cable   on a white house or think of those modern houses  where you have got coloured render or perhaps you   live in Balamory and you want to somehow tidy  up that cable or sort of blend in to the house   itself and get your opinion on this we've got this  trunking from d-line that's yeah normally used to   hide the cables going up to the television  but they're suggesting it's a good idea for   EV charge installs where you need to blend in with  the render let's get your opinion about what you   think of that pretty easy to install and again we  fired through it with the existing d-line clips   you can also get this consuming in the interior  version so which is in available in white unless   you've painted your house charcoal grey that might  be a better option and it has got the same circuit   protection options in there I will leave a link  in the description to the full range and check   out the full install we did of the BG Sync EV  charger in this video here well I'm doodles cleaning

Channel: eFIXX

Views: 74,130

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Id: et-duUyZP5Q

Length: 7min 30sec (450 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 02 2023