Installing an electric vehicle (EV) charging point involves more than just connecting cables and setting up the charging unit. It requires careful consideration of safety measures, including earth bonding.
In this blog post, we will explore the significance of gas and water earth bonding for EV charger installations and explain why it is crucial to have these measures in place.
Earth bonding protects you and your home by reducing the risks of electric shocks and electrical fires.
Bonding is the practice of connecting all exposed metallic items not designed to carry electricity in an area by using a protective bonding conductor. Connecting bonding wires to metal pipes, such as your gas and water pipes, reduces the voltage that might have been there.
Bonding is necessary in buildings with metal gas and water supply pipes as metal pipes have the potential to carry electrical currents from faults outside into your home. This is very dangerous and can lead to all or some metallic items in your home becoming live, which could be fatal.
Earth bonding is an essential need of every electrical installation, not only EV charger installations. In simple terms, the function of earth bonding is to prevent fatal electric shocks. As such, ensuring protective bonding is in place before an EV charger installation is vital.
Any qualified and certified electrician installing an electric car charger should follow the BS7671 electrical regulations and ensure that bonding is installed to the water and gas pipes.
The only exception where bonding does not need to be present is if the pipes that feed the gas or water supply are plastic.
Before installing an EV charger, we always ask for photographic evidence that the water and gas bonding is in place.
Having photographic evidence lets us know that we can install the EV charger safely and that we don’t need to install the water and gas bonding at the same time as the charger, which can add an extra cost to the installation.
Gas bonding can be identified by looking in or around the gas meter box for a yellow and green earth cable (see example below). Usually, the gas bonding cable is located near the gas meter, clamped to a copper pipe. The bonding cable can sometimes be found inside the gas meter box itself or inside the property, where the copper pipe enters the house.
Alternatively, if you cannot provide photographic evidence, you could provide us with a copy of your most recent electrical certificate, and we can check whether you have bonding installed.
To find the water bonding, you would need to look for the water stop cock in your property (the tap where you would turn off the water supply for the house). This is usually found under the sink, and again, we are looking for a yellow and green cable (see example below). This cable is generally found attached to a copper pipe somewhere within a meter of the water stop cock / stop tap.
Again, providing us with your most recent electrical certificate lets us check whether you have water bonding if you cannot provide photographic evidence.
If you do not have plastic gas or water supply pipes and cannot locate the gas or water bonding, we must assume that you do not have bonding in place.
As such, we will take additional payment for installing the gas and water bonding on the day of the EV charger installation. If the customer does not want to pay to have the bonding installed, we will have to abort the job for safety reasons, and the customer may be charged a fee.
If the bonding is in place when we get to your property, we can proceed with the EV charger installation at no extra cost.
If you have provided evidence that the bonding is in place or that you have a plastic service and do not need bonding, we can install the EV charger without any extra costs.
However, even if you have provided us with evidence that the water and gas bonding is in place, all our engineers will verify that the bonding is correct when they visit your property. This is because they will need to ensure that the bonding is actually there, is the appropriate size, and has been correctly connected.
If our engineers identify any issues with your bonding, we may need to quote you extra costs to fix these issues. Otherwise, we may be unable to install the EV charge point for safety reasons. But this is likely to be a rare scenario.
If you want an EV charger installed at your property, contact us today at 03333 44 96 99 or fill in our contact form below. With engineers across the UK, we can install home EV chargers wherever you are.
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This type of electric charger has it's own cable to charge your car.
This type of electric charger requires a seperate cable to charge your car.
Spread over a 60 month period.
Tenants and homeowners are eligible for finance.
You decide the amount of months.
Minimum of £1000.
We will contact you to process the credit application. Approval is subject to application, financial circumstances and borrowing history. 13.9% APR representative. T&Cs apply.
Your order is not confirmed until your application has been approved.
We lay SWA cable laid at 600mm deep, with a protective cable warning tape laid 150mm above the cable. These are laid on a sand or sifted sand soil bed then backfilled.
We position overhead cables at a minimum height of 3.5m and are run along a catenary wire. The cable run should not be accessible to vehicles.
Standard Installation
Our instant price is fixed if it falls within our standard installation package plus any additions that you have selected (extra cabling for example). This package covers the majority of homes in the UK. Before we undertake your installation we will carry out a digital survey to check that nothing has been missed. After reviewing the survey results some additional work may be required in order to complete your installation safely and to the required standards. If this is the case, we will contact you well before the installation date and advise the cost of any required work. You can then continue with your installation, or alternatively we will refund you in full if you do not want to proceed.
Included in our standard installation is :
• Fitting of a single phase charge point to a brick or plaster wall or other suitable permanent structure
• Up to 10 metres of cable, run and neatly clipped to the wall between the electricity supply meter / distribution board and the charge point.
• Routing of the cable through a drilled hole in a wall up to 500mm (20 inches) thick if this is needed.
• The fitting and testing of electrical connections and protections required for the charge point.
• An additional three way consumer unit, if required
• Installation of a Type A RCBO in an RCBO enclosure
• Up to 3 metres of plastic trunking to conceal interior wiring.
• An O-pen earth protection device if the charge point requires it. (This is NOT an earth rod)
• Up to 4 hours of labour from your installer to complete the work.
• Electrical testing of the whole installation.
• Handover and setup of the charge point and any app that may be needed.
Not included in our standard installation (additional work) :
• Where the installation requires additional cabling over and above the amount you have told us about.
• Upgrade/replacement of the main incoming supply fuse where the local DNO (eg Northern Powergrid) would need to attend site.
• If the charge point is to be mounted on a post/pedestal rather than an existing wall and where you have not selected a post as an extra cost option in your order.
• Installation of a charge point to a three phase supply.
• Where gas and water mains bonding (earthing) is not in place at your property. If this is not in place, additional work would be required before installation of the charge point.
• Any groundwork that has not been selected during the order process.
A Surge Protection Device is not included in our standard installation.
What else you need to know :
• On the day of installation, please ensure that the area around your consumer unit (fuse box), incoming electricity supply meter and proposed charge point location (including where the cable is expected to be run) is clear and free of obstructions.
• We will need your WiFi password as part of the installation process in order to connect your charge point to the internet. Please have this available for the installer. Details will not be kept.
• The charge point must be on your own designated off road parking.
• The charger will be fixed in line with current guidelines at a height where it cannot be hit by a vehicle.
• Our installers are not able to enter loft spaces; lift floorboards or flooring; take apart any furniture of work above a height of 2m. If you anticipate that any of this may be required, then please contact us and we can discuss in more detail and provide you with a quotation.
• Should there be extreme weather conditions our installers may not be able to continue with you installation if it is not safe to do so (for example flooding). They will always do their best to complete the work where they can.
If you have any questions then please contact our customer service team who will be happy to help. Please also read our terms and conditions.
