Mid-Terraced house EV charging options

[HangTime]

Looking to hear from anyone who has come up with innovative ideas for installing an EV charger in cases where it's not logistically easy.

We live in a mid-terraced house, the garage and parking space are part of a shared block that is not immediately adjacent to our property, it's about 20-30 yards away. When we bought it in 2008 'nobody' had an EV so running power to the garage wasn't a priority. I can't see a way to do it that doesn't involve us either passing through/on the neighbour's property (and garage) or having to somehow be run along a passageway from our back gate and across a courtyard.
The front 'garden' if you can call it that is too small to replace with a driveway. The shortest distance from our house to the car would be if we parked out the front and then ran a loose cable to it, but that would literally be going across the pavement which I assume isn't allowed / trip hazard / would get run over by pushchairs etc. We could maybe get away with occasionally running a cable out the back to our parking space but that would literally be running diagonally across a courtyard with cars driving over it etc. Slightly left-field option might be if we agreed to swap garages with a neighbour a couple of doors down, our garage is closer to their property (it's actually a coachhouse on top of our garage) and their garage is closer to ours (could run a cable along the back passage without needing to cross the courtyard), but probably be a bit of a faff legally, also officially our garage has a private parking space in front of it but their doesn't due to blocking turning circles etc, so we'd be giving up a parking space if we did that.

I'm pretty much resigned to not having an EV unless we move house or range / charging time improves massively (thereby allowing us to 'fill up' using public services) / lamppost charging is rolled out, but thought I'd check in case anyone has faced similar issues and come up with a solution?

 

[HangTime]

Thanks, that 'ChargeArm' concept seems to be the most practical 'in place' solution, although it would look a bit weird and I'm sure someone would complain about it. Wonder how much it costs?

Our house has an odd design that our two parking spaces are the other side of the pavement. House -> Pavement -> Parking Spaces -> Road.

We are are pure EV household (I have an MG5, my wife has an i3). I run the cable across the pavement, but only when charging. I purchased some very heavy duty (and physically heavy) cable protectors in bright yellow. These can withstand tonnes of load and lay completely flat. I have two of them which interlock and make sure that the cable is not visible. The cable and cable protectors are also under a street light. We have done this for 18 months and have had no complaints.

For me, the important thing is ensuring that we do not create a trip hazard.

Possibly a stupid question but if you only run the cable when charging, how does it it stay in place, is it just the weight that holds it in place and then you take it back onto your land when you've finished? Is it simple to do without having it ruck up and stuff? I can see in some ways this makes more sense than a fixed cable overlay because it gives you a bit more flexibility about where exactly you park.
There's something that doesn't quite sit right with me about running cables across the pavement though, might be a case of waiting to see if anyone else in the local area does similar first.

 

[HangTime]

I can any sort of works like that being expensive/hassle, you basically can't dig up a trench without disrupting the access to at least two other garages plus our garage is leasehold so I imagine more pain getting the charger installed.

Here's a (not to scale) mspaint pic:

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Red is my house
Purple are neighbour houses
Green is my back garden
Grey is the courtyard
Blue is my garage
White are neighbour garages (except the bit connected to my garden, that's the back passageway to the rear gate.
Note the garages and houses are all terraced even though my pic implies there are gaps between them.

Realistically I think I'll just land on sitting back for a few years and seeing how things evolve, it could be that as EVs gain more traction that there will be more of a drive to boost charging facilities, local authority projects etc.

 

[HangTime]

Similar layout here except the houses and gardens are rotated 90deg counterclockwise so the gardens back onto the parking and garage area.

We are end terraced and our garage is attached to our garden and came with power installed by the developer but our middle neighbours garage is furtherest like yours across a brick weaved parking area.

Last year I watched as he had a trench dug along his garden to the gate and a then a company came in and tunnelled under the brick weave across to his garage without disturbing anything! Was impressive to watch.

He now has power and data to his garage and a charger on the wall outside the door.

No idea how much it cost but could be an option.

Interesting, it's brick-weaved courtyard here too.

I can see that being a problem. Is the garage a separate plot to your house?

Yes, it's part of a block comprising our garage, a neighbour's garage, and then a coach house on top. This is what makes me think it might be more complicated, having to install a charger on leasehold property, maybe some additional safety regs because there is a third party living above it (although I guess this can't be much different from the regs for just installing on the wall of a house, but maybe you need to get permission from the other leaseholders).

What's kind of weird is the residents of the coachhouse above our garage have a garage that is the other side of the courtyard, closest to our garden. I would've though it would make more sense for their garage to be underneath their home rather than on a separate plot, it must be due the logistics of where they put put parking spaces, our garage has a space in front of it but theirs does not (although they still sometimes park in front of it 'illegally').

 

[HangTime]

The parking space thing will be down to the ‘coach house’ being a cheap property compared to a semi or detached house. The latter expects a parking space, probably more than one.

I was more thinking that it was a separate plot to your house (like they did it in the old days where you leased your garage as a separate transaction) but now I realise it sounds like you are on a fairly newish estate and they have a new like that near me with houses on the garage.

There shouldn’t be any issues with putting electricity in there or a car charger, the issue is dealing with the freeholder. That’s a lot easier if there is a few of you clubbing together. It can be done, it’s just how much £££ you are willing to throw at it.

The main reason they don’t put electricity in there is to corner cut and save cost and people buy them anyway.

I expect the premium on a house with a EV charging space will continue to rise (compared to the off street vs street parking premium there is now).

Yes I know the coachhouse is one of those without a parking space because it's cheaper, but that in itself wouldn't prevent them having a garage under their coachhouse, it's more that logistically with turning circles the allocated spaces have to be adjacent to that building rather than in front of the garages opposite. One of the reasons we bought the plot we did was because it had a parking space in addition to a garage, which wasn't the case for all the plots of the same house type.

Not looking to throw much money at this, leaving aside the cost of a charger I'd say a couple of hundred max, otherwise will just hold fire on getting an EV and keep an eye on how range / public charging evolves in the coming years.

Running electricity during the build phase I could see being a faff for the developer because it would need to be 'linked' to the meter for the right house, it really wasn't a consideration for us and I doubt would have added much value 15 years ago. Our neighbour did run power to his garage but that's because he was on the end and could just go straight across the courtyard entrance to his garage without needing to go across any neighbouring properties. So the garage next to ours already has power meaning they would have no interest in clubbing together.

I agree we should see some sort of premium associated with the ability to charge an EV, especially with the looming legislation around sales of new ICE vehicles.

How many miles do you drive on average per week? If it isn't in the 1000's then most of your charging would be done at night when there is very little foot traffic, unless of course your work night shifts etc. You also should need to be plugging it in every night/day, again coming back to weekly milage covered.

About 200 miles a week. Really depends what we do at the weekend, we do 60-65mile round trips every few weeks. In a 'quiet' week I'd hope we could get away with just charging it once a week plus perhaps some minor public top ups. Part of me thinks we'd be less likely to charge it at night as wouldn't want anyone coming along and fiddling with it whilst we're asleep.

 

[HangTime]

It wouldn’t have been a faff at all, during the build phase is exactly when you want to be putting it in, it’s sooooooo much easier and soooooo much cheaper.

They didn’t even need to put the cables in, suitable ducts literally cost a £1 per meter and a matter of minutes to install at the time of then laying the finished drive.

You give developers too much credit. Developers are only interested in building the bare minimum to meet the regs and maximising profit. It’s never been about producing a quality product that’s built to last or even fit for purpose.

Sure EVs might not have been on their radar but I’m pretty sure almost everyone wants a light and a 3 pin socket as a bare minimum.

It's not easier and cheaper from the perspective of the developer though is it? Zero effort and zero cost if they don't do it during build, compared to X effort and Y cost if they do. If they'd offered it as a paid extra we wouldn't have paid for it.
I'm not sure I give developers too much credit; I'm in agreement it's about doing the minimum and maximising profit. That's exactly the reason I'm saying they didn't do it - too much of a faff.
We didn't want a light and 3 pin socket as a bare minimum. Just wasn't on our radar as a deciding factor. Our old house had no garage and no parking space, so it was already a big upgrade.

 

[HangTime]

Honestly you sound like you have a busy enough job and life that I really just wouldn't bother. There will no real financial savings I presume, its going to be a ton of hassle and compromises and it'll just end up being a limiting factor.

I get why you'd consider it, but honestly I would just stick with something hybrid/petrol and save yourself a lot of headaches.

This is coming from a tesla s owner and a 911. Electrics are a pain in the ass for people who actually do things with their lives.

This is an old thread, and that's what we did in. Bought a Corolla Estate hybrid, I was a bit wary of there being more to go wrong on a hybrid / new tech teething problems, but someone rightly pointed out that Toyota have been making hybrid engines for like 20 years so it's pretty refined now.