Electric Cars (EVs)

[Kin Hell]

Three Phase 440V has been an Industry Standard for years and we're lucky to have our 1857 built house completely modified/re-wired to current UK Legislation...

We desperately need a Garage on our Property due to current driveway/parking subsidence & have lots of options to make provision for, but would like to incorporate Solar Panels on the Double (wide) garage proposal we need to plan for.

There are also Security Camera requirements for the rear of our property where the garage is planned & all this ties in with our investment in Ubiquiti Networking Solutions.

Some elements of Solar Electric have a long way to go yet but if a few UV panels can put cash in your pocket & give you free Electric all year round, why not jump on the bandwagon to be a part of it.

[Harrison]

True. We have opted for a EV charger that is solar and battery compatible, so if we fit solar panels at a later date we can take advantage, then an EV would be almost free to run. This is where solar battery storage is important as it can collect it all week in the daytime, then charge an EV at night or the weekend. That's a future plan though.

Regarding security cameras, we have been using Blink ones for some time now. The outside battery ones are pretty good. They run on lithium AA batteries and last about 6 months. The image quality isn't bad and they brought out a new version with colour night vision and higher resolution and framerate last year. We have one of those and it's fine for what we need. We also have some of their mini cameras indoors in key places. We have also installed them at my mother-in-laws now she is bed bound to keep an eye on the careers. We have an outside one looking at the front door and towards where people walk up to the door, and ones in the hall, kitchen and dining room. They are fairly well hidden. You can also use a local storage option with a USB stick to record footage, so don't need to subscribe to their cloud storage, although you do get 30 days free to try and convince you to subscribe. And the cloud storage is quickly to retrieve footage on your phone to quickly look, and if you have multiple cameras it actually edits the footage into a timeline based video that links them all. At Mother-in-laws this is almost like watching a documentary as you see them come to the door and unlock it, it then cuts to the hall as they open the door and walk through, then cuts tot he kitchen and back to the hall as they do what's needed. It doesn't do that for local USB storage but that seems to be the only limitation, I recommend Blink for cheap cost effective security cameras. Amazon often do bundle deals too that hugely reduce the price as Blink is an Amazon company,

[Harrison]

Last week the Electric Distribution Network Operator (DNO) finally came out and did the work needed on upgrading the incoming electric supply cable to the house and replaced the very old main incoming terminal and fuse. They didn't have to dig the whole drive up, only near the house to join the new cable, so that was less mess, but they did hit our water main whilst digging it up to find the electric cable, so work was delayed for a few hours waiting for the water company to come out and repair that. They then came back Friday and filled the hole back in and concreted over, and then back this Monday just gone to Tarmac over. So we now have a very obvious square on the drive. The tarmac drive was looking tired when we moved in 10 years ago and we were planning on getting it replaced at some point for something that looks nice like block paving, but it's not been a priority.

The incoming supply was 3 phase, so we now have a new set of 3 100A fuses ready for the electrician survey from the energy supply to plan for the EV charger install. Just waiting for a date now. As we are currently only using a single phase for the house it will depend on the cost and hassle. To use more phases obviously we would need to get the electric meter replaced, but that would be free and performed by the electric supplier. But the cost could be the need to upgrade the consumer unit, and if that's a lot then we might stick with just a single phase 7KWh charger for the moment.