EV charger installation in Ruislip

What a Ruislip house usually means for the job

Most of Ruislip went up between the wars, when the Metropolitan line pushed out this way and the fields became streets of semis. That is good news and bad news for EV charging.

The good news: nearly all of these houses have a driveway or hardstanding. You are not fighting for a space on the road and you do not need the council involved. That makes yours a straightforward install — the kind that gets done in an afternoon.

The bad news: the wiring has usually been added to in layers over ninety years. A rewire in the sixties, a kitchen done in the nineties, a shower circuit dropped in by somebody at some point. The consumer unit is often the newest thing in the house and still not new enough to take another circuit safely.

That is the single thing most likely to change your price, and it is why we ask for photos before quoting rather than after.

Where the charger usually goes

On a typical Ruislip semi the meter and board sit near the front door or under the stairs, and the driveway runs down the side. That is usually a short, tidy cable run — which keeps the cost down.

The awkward ones are houses where a garage was converted years ago and the board ended up somewhere odd, and the ones where the driveway was extended round the back. Both are perfectly doable. They just cost a bit more in cable and time, and we would rather tell you at the quote stage than on the day.

Load management, in plain terms

Your house has one main fuse. Run the oven, the shower and a car charger at once and something has to give. Load management is a sensor that watches what the house is drawing and quietly turns the car charging down when it needs to, then puts it back up again.

On most Ruislip properties with a standard 60A or 80A supply it is worth having. It costs a little more up front and it stops you standing in the dark looking for a torch.

What it costs in Ruislip

A standard 7kW install starts at £850. If the consumer unit needs replacing first the total is higher, and we will tell you by how much from the photos — before you commit to anything. A long or awkward cable run costs a bit more, and that is in the quote before we start, not added afterwards.

You will get a fixed price, from photographs, before anybody books time off work.

What about the government grant?

If you own or rent a flat with private off-street parking, you can claim up to £500. If you are a landlord, up to £500 per socket.

If you have a driveway and own the house, there is no grant — those schemes closed to standard households some years ago.

And if you have no driveway at all, read charging without a driveway first. The honest answer in Hillingdon is not what most installers will tell you.

Around Ruislip

Ruislip, Ruislip Manor, South Ruislip, Ruislip Gardens, Eastcote and Ickenham are all on our doorstep, so we can usually get to you the same week. We also cover Uxbridge and Pinner.

Thinking about the fuse board as well? See consumer unit replacement.