Does anyone have or considered an Anderson EV charger?

[Scratch]

The entire electrical system had a full inspection when we moved in here and it came back clean, including the mains powered hardwired lighting installation also on the fence posts. I got the audit done because I simply didn't trust the electrical install in this ancient barn and expected to have to a fix a load of things. Turned out there wasn't much to do (other than light replacements in the garage from fluorescent tubes to sealed LED's and the like).

Our fence is pretty damned permanent and expecting to always have a brick wall and a permanent structure to affix anything electrical to is unrealistic. Particularly out here, in the countryside

I was only agreeing with van's comment really, I'm not looking for an internet fracas... I am also not an electrician, but I have to work with a lot of them. As I said, there is no specific regulation stating you can't attach SWA to a wooden fence, it is a debate about whether the fence is classed as a permanent structure however and that is where the question comes in. I know that the electricians I work with won't install to wooden fences no matter how substantial but round here wooden fences are annually re-constructed after a good storm straight off the Irish sea, and there are specific rules in Wales.

If you've used an NICEIC registered installer then you will get a certificate and the work will be notified to Building control as is the law and I would suggest as you are happy with the install then that's that.

However Andersen's own website says you cannot install to a wooden fence. https://andersen-ev.com/ev-charger/car/home/ Point 5.

No fracas here, apologies if it sounded like I was kicking off (I wasn't, I promise!).

I got 4 competitive quotes, 2 of which were actual physical site surveys, all of which were NICEIC Approved Contractors with the Domestic Installer NICEIC approval. One of those quotes was from Andersen themselves. I asked specifically about the fence routing and every single one of the prospective installers - including Andersen specifically - said it wouldn't be a problem at all given the sturdiness of the fence. I even asked them about an alternative fitment around the back of the house, which would have been directly attached to the barn stone walling, and they universally said it would be more problematic to route there and less safe due to the proximity of our domestic kerosene tank to the charger location.

I was already aware that Andersen said they cannot install to a wooden fence on their website, and I specifically pressed them on this point during their site survey. The explanation I was given was that you can't install to a wooden fence panel, because they are often dropped into guides between concrete fence posts and aren't actually secured to anything. Many years ago we had just that kind of "new house builders fence" and it lost its fence panels every winter if the wind speed got above a spirited mouse fart. Attaching anything electrical to that would count as assisted suicide I suspect.

I ultimately took the view that as our moving-in electrical inspection came back clear, plus 4x charger virtual site surveys and 2x physical site surveys by NICEIC approved contractors were all saying the same thing, then I should probably stop worrying about it. One should not employ experts and then ignore their advice, after all Appreciate this is probably a level of attention most householders don't give to the problem at hand ... but then we're a mildly unusual household due to Mrs Utumno's disabilities.

We're very happy with the install and the certification all seems in order and official.

Again please accept my apologies if you felt my tone was turning lairy; it absolutely wasn't intended to come across that way!

Sorry to bring politics into this but I had to chuckle when I read “ One should not employ experts and then ignore their advice, ”. Boris spent the best part of the pandemic doing precisely that. I apologise again.

[Utumno]

I'm going to ignore the politics, because otherwise it'll be religion next and we can't have that

One small addendum specific to Andersen's app - it seems pretty good to me, and you can describe your time-of-day tariff to it and set up charging schedules too. It'll tell you how much your charge cost and the kW gone in over time as well. Simple, but quite well done. You can remotely lock/unlock the charger, and when schedules are turned on it'll only feed a charge in on that schedule.

I'm sure this is relatively normal for "smart" charger apps, but just thought I'd mention in case future forumites search for the info. Example app screenshot below of a test charge done to my father's Tesla Model 3 recently:

[G43FAN]

That looks nice and clean, the Zappi app is very cluttered with a multitude of options on one page. I like it and so far it seems to work, but I have yet to venture to far into the SMART area. You can unlock the charger from the app also. With regards to scheduled charging it took me a while to work out that I need to put the charger in Eco+ mode if I didn't want it to charge straight away.

[Scratch]

I'm going to ignore the politics, because otherwise it'll be religion next and we can't have that

One small addendum specific to Andersen's app - it seems pretty good to me, and you can describe your time-of-day tariff to it and set up charging schedules too. It'll tell you how much your charge cost and the kW gone in over time as well. Simple, but quite well done. You can remotely lock/unlock the charger, and when schedules are turned on it'll only feed a charge in on that schedule.

I'm sure this is relatively normal for "smart" charger apps, but just thought I'd mention in case future forumites search for the info. Example app screenshot below of a test charge done to my father's Tesla Model 3 recently:

IMG_0240.png

“ because otherwise it'll be religion next and we can't have that”. Thank heavens!