To have expected a better installation for electric car charger?

[Walkingtheplank]

I've come home from work to see the new installed car charger. This is for DH's new car so I've left it to him. I was expecting to see what I think is a 'pod' attached to the wall. I didn't give much thought to what would happen inside the house if I'm honest as I thought the point of installation is next to the garage and it would run from there.

What I came home to was I square unit like a larger smart meter glowing in the dark, and the cable and socket just there - the cable wrapped haphazardly on a hook - like having a garden hose but not the reel to hold it together.

Then I came into my hall (decorated not so long ago) to find that the cable has been run from the understairs cupboard at top of door level, covered by cable trunking. I believe that this has gone through to the next room but DH would not let me see after I was rude to him about the work.

This installation was a 'free' installation but perhaps not so free if you have to get both the outside unit replaced and the hall and a reception room redecorated. I think we'll need to get another electrician in to put the cabling inside the walls and then have both redecorated. I'm gutted.

What is normal in such installations? Was I expecting too much?

I didn't mean to put in a vote - I don't post on AIBU very often.
It would be useful to hear what other installations have been like.
I'm conscious I might have been really naive about this.

Ours is on the wall just inside the bin store. The cable wraps tidyily around the charge point. Nothing goes into the house or is visible. Nothing visible inside the garage either.

I wouldn't be happy with what you describe.

It depends what your husband agreed, presumably with the car dealership and their electrical contractor. A free installation will be a basic install with ugly surface trunking for speed and ease, these people do three or four installs a day, it's a cheap package install. It's safe but not pretty. Normally the consumer unit is in a garage and it's not an issue.

If you got an electrician in to do it properly, with chasing, it'd be - obviously - more expensive.

'I believe that this has gone through to the next room but DH would not let me see after I was rude to him about the work.'

Seriously?! Is it not your house too??

We had a conversation with the installer beforehand about how they could hide the cabling and were prepared to pay for an electrician to do it if they said they couldn't. As it happens our installer lifted carpets etc and managed to hide all the cabling that came into the house.

I can't quite work out what's annoying you with the charge point. If it's a hypervolt then you can turn the glowing off with the app. If it's too big, eo do quite small ones and Simpson & Partners does good looking ones. You can get untethered ones so that big ugly cable can come out completely and hidden in your boot.

ours goes into the garage but you wouldn’t even notice it in there. The outside hub is great actually. Very tidy. An electrician installed ours. I was at work and don’t think I even noticed for 2 days ( I don’t drive the electric car😂)

Yours does sound a bit basic, but for free I wouldn't complain too much. Our unit and install cost just over £1K. Our cabling goes out through the external wall by our understairs meter, along the outside of the house and to the charger unit. Very neat and nothing shows inside at all as luckily for us the electricity meter is in a cupboard under the stairs that has an external wall. We have an untethered charge point so the cable is not permanently attached and it just coils up in a bag and is stored in the utility room. From the outside it looks like we have a small hand dryer on the wall and that's about it. We were lucky though and it will depend on your meter location, where you want the charging point and your house layout as to how much of the installation is visible or not.

Yep, it's my house too. I might have made that point!
But as I might show him this thread, I'm going to leave that there.

We don’t have any visible cabling inside until the actual meter (up high in the hall so I don’t really care), however the meter-charger cabling is all on the outside of the house, at first I thought it wasn’t nice to look at and wished they’d found a way to hide it better but now I don’t really notice it.
Ours was done in a bit of a rush because the grant was about to end so I was just glad to get it in place to be honest

I believe that this has gone through to the next room but DH would not let me see

What do you mean? Can’t you just walk into the room and look?

Sounds like they’ve made a total bodge job!

I thought I was going to come home to something need and tidy. Not 3 separate pieces on the outside wall with cable just there. I now realise I must have been thinking of a pod.
Good to know the unit's light can be switched off.

We had one fitted recently (a Zappi) and I was glad I was here when he came to quote for the job as, even though we had the main wiring to the garage already done, it was much more involved than I expected and I'm the one who knows how our house is built and what works and what doesn't. I requested that the cable for the wireless unit was external cabling, so it goes out through the meter cupboard around the house and then back in where the little Harvi box is. We chose an untethered charger partly for tidiness and also because the tethered are apparently a target for metal thieves. It was all a lot more faff than I expected, but now it's done it's great, and the charger is quite inconspicuous.