Get an Intelligent Octopus Go charger with Smart Home Charge

Yes! Head over to our Compare Chargers tool for snapshot view and see the best features for our range of electric car charging points.

Many customers will not need any upgrades to their electricity supply before having an EV charger installed.

All installers are however required to notify the local Distribution Network Operator (DNO) of any EV charger installations, who will advise you and us if an upgrade to your property’s main fuse is necessary.

This depends on your property’s “maximum demand” estimate, (which is submitted by our in-house technicians to your DNO as part of our process), the size of the main fuse or if your property is on a looped supply (connected to your neighbour).

Any potential works will be handled by your DNO and they will contact you directly if this is the case.

Smart Home Charge is a nationwide installer, covering England, Scotland and Wales.

We have experienced engineers covering all major cities and regions, but there might be the odd nook or cranny we can't get to quickly.

Find out if we install EV chargers in your area with our location checker.

Yes.

Our engineers will complete the initial setup and pairing of the charger app via Wi Fi or 3G (depending on the product) with the charge point itself as this is considered as part of the installation.

In a way, all electric car chargers are compatible with solar panels in that they will consume electricity just like any other appliance - and if you are generating from solar at the same time then there's a chance that solar energy makes it to your car.

But there's the rub - it's just a chance and you have no real way of knowing if and how much solar is making it into your electric vehicle.

What most people mean by this question is, can I divert any surplus solar energy into my electric vehicle to do solar charging? To do this, you'll need a charging point that is capable of detecting any surplus and start charging your electric cars before the excess solar is lost to the grid.

Learn more about this in our solar electric vehicle charging article.

Battery storage is a little more technical, so it's worth speaking direct with the manufacturer or a battery storage installer for their recommendation first.

More or less, yes. If you choose an untethered (or socket only) EV charging point, then it will work with every electric vehicle - you just need to use the correct charging cable for your car.

However, if you choose a tethered electric car charger for home then you'll need to be a little more selective. This is because the cable is attached to the charge point in this case, so you'll need to ensure it "matches" your vehicle.

Luckily there are only two "types" of cable for charging at home - Type 1 and Type 2 - and even then almost all recent and new electric cars are Type 2. So the vast majority of electric cars work with all modern chargers.

No, you don't need a smart meter in order to have an electric vehicle charger installed.

However, if you intend to take advantage of the many EV friendly tariffs available and save hundreds per year on your via smart charging, then you will likely need a smart meter to access them.

Check out our energy tariff comparison tool to learn more.

No.

You can still have an electric vehicle charger installed even if you don't have off-street private parking, but it can make an electric car charger installation more complicated and costly depending on the situation, the cable run and layout.

We understand you want to know when we will be installing your EV charger as soon as possible. There are a number of mandatory steps that must be completed before we can give you a firm date (see below), but fortunately our lead times are short in all but the furthest corners of the UK.

Key steps we must complete before giving you a firm date include ordering the charge point, which is ordered as soon as you pay, completing the remote site survey, and completing the DNO notification (which can sometimes lead to delays if your DNO wants to carry out works).

We do this so we can provide a firm date knowing all the required steps are completed, helping to avoid delays.

We think this is a fairer and more transparent way of doing things, rather than making false promises about a date at the start and having to change this later.