Mid-Terraced house EV charging options

[jpaul]

Problem in a lot of places you'd need access to that same space as well.

A proper solution will have to come. There are loads of people in this situation and electric is coming fast.

for big appartment blocks which can satisfy requirements for government grant, with dedicated ev parking spaces that can be shared between residents.
would be interesting to know what electricity rates they get throughout the day - versus the octopus go faster etc. rates.

 

[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.

 

[jpaul]

we're in a terrace of three 2010 properties with garages about 30M away, they each have a buried cable to the garages, whether that is specified for a continuos 7KW , or just a granny supply, I don't know

 

[dlockers]

we're in a terrace of three 2010 properties with garages about 30M away, they each have a buried cable to the garages, whether that is specified for a continuos 7KW , or just a granny supply, I don't know

That's mega. My friend lives in an end terrace which he has just had £10k knocked off of asking (775 -> 765) as the garage 'en bloc' has no power and thus is "a bit stuck" w.r.t EVs.

 

[theone8181]

That's mega. My friend lives in an end terrace which he has just had £10k knocked off of asking (775 -> 765) as the garage 'en bloc' has no power and thus is "a bit stuck" w.r.t EVs.

775 for an end terrace . I'm assuming south east, as up north you can buy a street for that.

 

[Jonnycoupe]

we're in a terrace of three 2010 properties with garages about 30M away, they each have a buried cable to the garages, whether that is specified for a continuos 7KW , or just a granny supply, I don't know

Look at your consumer unit at the fuse ratings for a clue or the diameter/markings on the cable in the garage.

That or google/YouTube a video. Might not work out this time.

 

[dlockers]

775 for an end terrace . I'm assuming south east, as up north you can buy a street for that.

That's pretty cheap tbh - it is a town house and they get hit with a bit of a penalty.

 

[theone8181]

That's pretty cheap tbh - it is a town house and they get hit with a bit of a penalty.

In that case it gets a . That's more than double the cost of my 4 bed detached in a nice area of beverley with this nice area called a drive.

 

[Nasher]

What is going to happen on all the new, crampt housing estates where the houses/flats are sometimes nowhere near the road at all and there is barely enough room for one car each.

The government want us all in these awful estates with gardenless and drivewayless houses, but there is no room to get charging infrastructure in there.

 

[theone8181]

What is going to happen on all the new, crampt housing estates where the houses/flats are sometimes nowhere near the road at all and there is barely enough room for one car each.

The government want us all in these awful estates with gardenless and drivewayless houses, but there is no room to get charging infrastructure in there.

One of my workmates bought a semi a year ago (new estate) with "offload parking". Its around 100m away from his house so will be mega money to put a charger in (and will have to be a standalone thing, rather than attached to the side of the house). I know its getting mandated, but I think money talks with these developers. I personally would not accept something like a semi not have a drive next to the house.

 

[LeeUK]

What is going to happen on all the new, crampt housing estates where the houses/flats are sometimes nowhere near the road at all and there is barely enough room for one car each.

The government want us all in these awful estates with gardenless and drivewayless houses, but there is no room to get charging infrastructure in there.

New estate builders are building under the impression that we are all going to give up our cars and cycle or use public transport to everywhere. They are building 4-bed houses with 1 driveway and a tiny garage which are only big enough to fit a Daewoo Matiz in when these days every adult in a household usually has a car.

 

[Nasher]

New estate builders are building under the impression that we are all going to give up our cars and cycle or use public transport to everywhere. They are building 4-bed houses with 1 driveway and a tiny garage which are only big enough to fit a Daewoo Matiz in when these days every adult in a household usually has a car.

Yea I've seen 4-5 bedroom new builds locally, asking 7-800k. Built right up against the pavement with only a shared driveway and no garage, so no real private parking. Probably the usual "maintenance" fee stuck on it as well.

A garden to the rear which is about the size of what you'd want on a 3 or even 2 bedroom house and small windows. It's a large and cheaply built house on a small plot of land, so massively overpriced and likely to depreciate when the first owner comes to sell it. Why would anyone buy this over what else you can find for that. It's nuts.

 

[R.O.S.S.I]

We have a similar situation where our house is backed off from the road in a corner of a street and without a driveway means our car is parked on the street a good 30-40m away from the edge of our front garden and its been on my mind how we would facilitate an EV should we need a new car.

The best I could come up with is potentially running a line overhead about 30m where the old telephone line comes into the house from the post on the street, and building the charging box onto that the post somehow. Theres probably something i've not really thought about tbh like how would you secure it so no one else used it and if its even possible to do that over a longish distance. Also not sure how the council would feel about it and how it would work without having designated parking spots on the street, but it could be one work around.

 

[Rroff]

Yea I've seen 4-5 bedroom new builds locally, asking 7-800k. Built right up against the pavement with only a shared driveway and no garage, so no real private parking. Probably the usual "maintenance" fee stuck on it as well.

A garden to the rear which is about the size of what you'd want on a 3 or even 2 bedroom house and small windows. It's a large and cheaply built house on a small plot of land, so massively overpriced and likely to depreciate when the first owner comes to sell it. Why would anyone buy this over what else you can find for that. It's nuts.

There is one for sale near where I work (new build), nearly half a million, 4 bedroom in a ~6x7m house footprint... rear garden just about big enough to fit a patio set, right onto the road though there is a detached garage which is about as small as you can make it and still call it a garage so you could park one tiny hatchback in the garage and one on the excuse for a drive which runs beside the house to the garage.

I'm not even exaggerating much to say my bedroom is almost as big as this 4 bedroom house (in terms of purely top down footprint).

EDIT: You could charge an electric car or two there though as long as it was like a Renault Zoe.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

We have a similar situation where our house is backed off from the road in a corner of a street and without a driveway means our car is parked on the street a good 30-40m away from the edge of our front garden and its been on my mind how we would facilitate an EV should we need a new car.

Move house and make it someone else's (expensive) problem before its too late.

The above may not seem like a serious comment but it's serious. Houses with 'proper' driveways are already at a large premium over those that don't. Once people start fully factoring the realities of EV ownership and the cost of public charging and home charging into purchases prices then I can only see that gap widening unless something dramatic changes on the public charging front.

Home charging for 8k miles will cost you £160 a year, public charging the same 8k miles will cost anything from £1k to £1.7k at current prices. Now scale that over a 25 year mortgage.

Something is going to have to change on the public charging front, hopefully competition and time of use pricing will drive prices down but its never going to be as cheap as charging off your own fully. There are solutions for some properties but they are only geared up to bridge a small pavement, not 30m of someone else's land.

 

[Nasher]

We have a similar situation where our house is backed off from the road in a corner of a street and without a driveway means our car is parked on the street a good 30-40m away from the edge of our front garden and its been on my mind how we would facilitate an EV should we need a new car.

The best I could come up with is potentially running a line overhead about 30m where the old telephone line comes into the house from the post on the street, and building the charging box onto that the post somehow. Theres probably something i've not really thought about tbh like how would you secure it so no one else used it and if its even possible to do that over a longish distance. Also not sure how the council would feel about it and how it would work without having designated parking spots on the street, but it could be one work around.

I don't think there is any way a council would allow someone to run a HV cable across a public walkway. People are doing it just across pavements and that isn't even allowed. If someone mentions it to the council they will be over to tell you to remove it or dishing out fines. If someone gets injured you're screwed.

 

[theone8181]

Move house and make it someone else's (expensive) problem before its too late.

The above may not seem like a serious comment but it's serious. Houses with 'proper' driveways are already at a large premium over those that don't. Once people start fully factoring the realities of EV ownership and the cost of public charging and home charging into purchases prices then I can only see that gap widening unless something dramatic changes on the public charging front.

Home charging for 8k miles will cost you £160 a year, public charging the same 8k miles will cost anything from £1k to £1.7k at current prices. Now scale that over a 25 year mortgage.

Something is going to have to change on the public charging front, hopefully competition and time of use pricing will drive prices down but its never going to be as cheap as charging off your own fully. There are solutions for some properties but they are only geared up to bridge a small pavement, not 30m of someone else's land.

Not to mention convenience of charging at home. I can just plug in and leave it, if I had to charge at my local Tesco's it's 50p/kWh for a 50kw charger (might be more expensive now haven't checked in a while). Not to mention that's probably 4 hours of charging when the carpark is limited to 3 hours. There aren't any superchargers within 60 miles of me (Beverley/hull). I can see it being a royal pita in a terraced house as you'd have to play musical chairs all the time. If they did it from separate garages that might work better.

 

[Orangeade]

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?

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.

 

[Nasher]

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 the thing. EVs require much more time investment.

If you spend a lot of time away from home it's going to be a faff.

Time is the one thing you can never get back!

 

[Bug One]

What is going to happen on all the new, crampt housing estates where the houses/flats are sometimes nowhere near the road at all and there is barely enough room for one car each.

The government want us all in these awful estates with gardenless and drivewayless houses, but there is no room to get charging infrastructure in there.

Couldn't agree more (a first?).

All new built houses should have south facing roofs with a driveway.