Skoda Enyaq Forum

This morning the electrician came and do a survey and from the description of it, they need to pull the carpet up and pull some floor boards up and drill a lot of holes here and there (and the initialy quote before any of these additional work coming to £1k). My OCD-ness just feels that it's not going to happen and might want to ditch the EV charger plan and go on a full time granny charging.

I don't drive much these days and 200 miles would normally last me for 2 weeks on a normal routine. Sometimes lesser and occasionally need a 120 miles commute. My previous Outlander PHEV was on 100% granny charging but that's just a 9kW charging.

Apart from the obvious being slow to charge and making sure the leads are fully unwind during charging, are there any potential pitfalls for going full time granny charging? Would it be less efficient where the granny charger are pulling in let's say 100kW but only put into the car 90kW (hypothetically)?

Appreciate members opinion on this if you are doing the same thing.

Thanks in advance!

All any AC EVSE is (whether that's a 2.3kW granny charger, a 7kW wall box or an 11kW three-phase type in a supermarket carpark) is a set of electronically controlled switches and some minimal logic to control whether the car is connected safely. The charger is part of the car, it just takes mains electricity at whatever current it needs (up to the maximum that the EVSE and cable can safely supply).

So there are no issues with using a low powered EVSE other than it taking longer, and whether the socket and plug get warm due to poor contact (not an issue on hardwired EVSEs). You could buy a granny charger and cut off the plug and hardwire it into a fused outlet for example to make a permanent setup to mitigate this if you wanted.

People who don't have a driveway or live in flats manage to own and operate EVs perfectly well - it's just down to what's convenient for you. I'd say then if you only occasionally do longer trips, then maybe use local rapid chargers if you need to get a full charge quickly and use the granny charger otherwise.

Granny charging is totally safe in the long term, if cables and sockets are in order. If sockets are old they might overheat. If this is the primary method of charging I would recommend an electrician to check sockets and then leave the charger plugged. Repetitive connecting/disconnecting may loosen the plug over time.

Even at 1.8kW one would get 100km range in 10 hours. Seems ok in your case.

The added benefits of the proper charging unit is mainly charging speed of 11kW, capable of topping the battery overnight from 0%. What some people neglect is, that with faster speeds you can optimize charging for the cheapest hours more easily. With a granny you are tied to around the clock charging regardless of pricing.

I know plenty people who use granny only and cope fine with it.

Thanks @RichR and @Erakettu. That quite reassuring Having it plugged in full time makes sense. Just need to have a proper wire management to avoid any accident.

Alrighty then, time to research the granny charger then Seems like the one from Screfix (if i remember correctly) is the one to go to.

There are more sophisticated ones (eg with timers etc) around so worth seeing what's about. The Masterplug one from Screwfix isn't as cheap as it once was either, though it does the job well enough. Also check for second hand (possibly never used) ones for other makes of car. As long as it's Type 2 (so not an Outlander PHEV one with Type 1 ) then it'll work.

I’ve been meaning to post some pictures of what can go wrong with granny chargers- this happened to me earlier in the year. I purchased very good quality, heavy duty charger and extension cable.

For the first few days on holiday I was very careful I.e. unwound the cables didn’t put the cover down on the waterproof socket on the extension lead etc …

By day 5 I’d got lazy and didn’t ensure the cable was completely straight although it wasn’t wound up by any means. I also closed the lid on the waterproof socket on the extension cable - something people might be tempted to do on a wall mounted electric socket

Fortunately I discovered the issue before any fire but check the images out

IanEV wrote: ↑Tue Jul 26, 2022 1:13 pm I’ve been meaning to post some pictures of what can go wrong with granny chargers- this happened to me earlier in the year. I purchased very good quality, heavy duty charger and extension cable.

For the first few days on holiday I was very careful I.e. unwound the cables didn’t put the cover down on the waterproof socket on the extension lead etc …

By day 5 I’d got lazy and didn’t ensure the cable was completely straight although it wasn’t wound up by any means. I also closed the lid on the waterproof socket on the extension cable - something people might be tempted to do on a wall mounted electric socket

Fortunately I discovered the issue before any fire but check the images out

AD1BFE2A-9186-476A-BEAA-C70278A40B89.jpeg

BC52B166-7260-43F9-A6EF-98BA8E0C99DC.jpeg

8B0CC038-6F9D-4F20-8EEE-6207D0BD7B2F.jpeg

9EA51907-4AF2-409F-9360-64F80E830650.jpeg

1E6A970D-8B4F-4213-B0F9-55DF871BBC48.jpeg

0ACBC453-D6E8-4847-A4F3-75132A89AE89.jpeg

Wow! Do you know the cause of this?

RichR wrote: ↑Tue Jul 26, 2022 1:00 pm There are more sophisticated ones (eg with timers etc) around so worth seeing what's about. The Masterplug one from Screwfix isn't as cheap as it once was either, though it does the job well enough. Also check for second hand (possibly never used) ones for other makes of car. As long as it's Type 2 (so not an Outlander PHEV one with Type 1 ) then it'll work.

Just checked the masterplug price and indeed it has gone up to £200. The last I've seen was somewhere arounf £130 to £150...

That's what can happen when you pull 10A through a socket and plug that have dirt, grease or corrosion on the pins or are made of less than ideal materials. It only needs a slight resistance to generate heat, and in normal use most household sockets that have that kind of current flowing through them are only doing so for well under an hour (eg kettles, fan ovens, radiators all switch off when they get up to temperature after 30 minutes tops), so it isn't an issue. But for an EVSE, it could be drawing that high current for 10 hours or even more - and that can allow the heat to build up until something melts.

Hence why you should always check if it's getting warm every so often or if making it permanent consider removing that resistance between plug pins and socket by cutting off the plug and wiring it in to a good quality switched fused outlet.

RichR wrote: ↑Tue Jul 26, 2022 1:45 pm That's what can happen when you pull 10A through a socket and plug that have dirt, grease or corrosion on the pins or are made of less than ideal materials. It only needs a slight resistance to generate heat, and in normal use most household sockets that have that kind of current flowing through them are only doing so for well under an hour (eg kettles, fan ovens, radiators all switch off when they get up to temperature after 30 minutes tops), so it isn't an issue. But for an EVSE, it could be drawing that high current for 10 hours or even more - and that can allow the heat to build up until something melts.

Hence why you should always check if it's getting warm every so often or if making it permanent consider removing that resistance between plug pins and socket by cutting off the plug and wiring it in to a good quality switched fused outlet.

Learn something new today Thanks!

There was no corrosion, visible dirt or moisture. To my mind it was purely down to being a warm day and the lid closed on the waterproof socket combined with one small amount of looped over cable. The waterproof socket was also on a surface which reflected heat back onto it.