If you are planning to get a home EV charger installed, there is a step that comes before the charger goes on the wall. That step is assessing your switchboard, and it is one that too many people skip.

The switchboard is the foundation

Your switchboard controls every circuit in the home. Without a proper switchboard board, nothing else works. When you add an EV charger, you are introducing one of the highest sustained electrical loads a residential property will ever see. A quality wall-mounted charger draws between 16 and 32 amps continuously over several hours. If your switchboard is not rated for that load, or if the cabling between your meter and your board is undersized, you are setting yourself up for problems.

What we check before we start

Every EV charger job starts with an assessment of the home's electrical infrastructure. We confirm the mains supply has enough capacity, check that the switchboard can accommodate an additional RCBO for the EV circuit, assess the cable run from the board to the charger location, and check whether the panel contains asbestos. Homes built before the 1980s often do, and that needs to be dealt with before any new electrical work proceeds.

What happens when this step is skipped

We fix installs done by other electricians regularly. The pattern is consistent. Burnt out isolators, cables stressed beyond their rating, safety switches that were never correctly rated for the circuit, and terminations that were not properly crimped. Most of these problems trace back to a switchboard that was never properly assessed before the charger went in.

If the board needs upgrading

If the assessment finds the switchboard needs replacing, it is generally a full day's work. The old panel comes out, a new compliant board goes in, all safety switches are replaced with correctly rated RCBOs, and the EV circuit is installed once the board is commissioned. The whole home's electrical system is brought up to standard at the same time, which also sets you up properly for solar or battery storage down the track.

Getting it done right

An EV charger installed into a compliant, properly assessed electrical system will be reliable and safe for the life of the vehicle. If you are on the Central Coast or Lake Macquarie and are looking at getting a home charger installed, the conversation starts with the switchboard.

Get a free switchboard health check. Send us a photo of your existing set up and we will give you an expert advise.