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Mmm the forums seem to be misbehaving – this should have been posted with the title, and the edit isn’t working!
Wanted to give some pointers for those just purchasing and taking ‘advantage’ of the Renault offer with British Gas to get a home charging point installed.Firstly be sure that you have the whole picture. British Gas should ask you 6 qualifying questions. These relate to whether you own the house or have the landlords permission, whether you have a parking space, etc etc. One that they often forget to ask is “do you have an isolator switch” ie the ability to disconnect your power from the main incoming power supply. This should be a switch between the main house fuse (not the fuse box) and the meter. If you don’t they cannot fit the charging point. Ours is integrated within the meter so is not immediately obvious and the first engineer to attend missed it.
One question that they do not ask, BUT IS VITAL is what rated fuse is your main supply fuse (the big black one that is before the meter and has a sealed tag on). If this is normal it will probably be 60amps. British Gas will not install if it is less than 80amps, and they won’t change it for you. You will have to get your supplier to change it which is a long and tortuous process taking several weeks. The EV team do not ask this question at all, resulting in the installation engineer coming along and saying he can’t do the work – the peeved engineer tells me that of the 8 calls he has had this week, he has only been able to fit on two occasions because the fuse has not been the right rating, and he only gets paid when he installs.
Both these things have happened to me, so we are now five weeks in, I have had two engineer visits (both who traveled 60miles to get to me) and I still don’t have an EV charging point installed. It looks like it will be another four weeks minimum (worse because of Christmas) and I have so far spent 34 hours in telephone calls, engineer appointments and written correspondence, £360 on a 13amp charging lead, goodness knows how much in energy costs (13amp lead takes 11hrs to charge Zoe) and I am no closer to a resolution.
If I knew the picture at the start, I could have been prepared and had everything in place. I hope this is of use to someone considering buying a Zoe. The car is fantastic but getting a charging point installed is tortuous and British Gas are useless.
This is more to do with British Gas, I think!
Paul, who posts here regarding his Fluence, also reported many many similar problems with BG. Best avoid if you can, it seems!
Interesting about the current level, I don’t think my fitter had any interest in checking that out before he started installing the unit. I guess he might’ve noticed it when he later turned the power off prior to the final wiring, but if it was that important I’d have thought he’d check first than later.
Of course, the various rules and guidances are undergoing continual change at the moment as more are installed and lessons learned. That’s all part of the rationale for helping funding them.
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Question for all you Zoe chaps – it is implied in Renault advertising that they cover the installation of the charge unit when purchasing a Zoe. When I got the Fluence it was specifically different to now – back then the literature was clear that you ‘could’ get a funded charge point from OLEV. Doesn’t seem to say that now. So do Renault pay for it and can I have a second non-OLEV charge point fitted if I get a Zoe, or is it really an OLEV funded charge point you get with a Zoe?The cost of a new charging point is not covered by Renault, but by an OLEV grant, it’s just Renault arrange for British Gas to come as that is their supplier.
… and they pay for the upgrade from 16A to 30A.
We have had our zoe three weeks so far and no contact from either BG or Renualt.
I decided to go to rolec and get one of the wall pods as they do a 32A free on the OLEV grant scheme.
Took about a week start to finish and I have no issues. They came , fitted a separate meter with GPRS and a 32A breaker off the main Consumer unit. Only issue I had was to replace the MCB as it was noisy when charging. A decent quality one has sorted that issue. I don’t have any isolator switch other than the incomer isolator on the CU.My charging point has just been installed, with no issues. Chap seemed to know quite alot about the Zoe as well.
Only problem now is that I appear to be missing a car… Dealer being somewhat inept – is ‘maybe Friday’ good enough to start the insurance going.
Your dealer should give you login details for Renault Insurance so you can arrange a complementary 5 day comprehensive insurance cover note. The only problem for me was that the cover was only for social domestic and pleasure so I had to sort out insurance a couple of days later to ensure I had cover for my commute to work.
Admiral have been very good and are ready to start the policy as soon as. I would say just start on Friday, but then the clock starts running to get them the proof of no claims and if there’s an issue – I’m away the end of next week and its Christmas the week after, it won’t get sorted for a while, and I’ll still need the old car.
My British Gas fitter just plain didn’t bother to turn up. No calls to cancel or anything.
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