A practical guide to charging an electric car at home

If you have off-street parking in London, charging at home is almost always cheaper and more convenient than relying on the public network. But the practicalities matter: what you can install, what it costs, and how you pay for the electricity. Here is what to think about before you commit.

Work out whether you can actually charge at home

The single biggest factor is whether you have a private, off-street space you control. A driveway or a dedicated parking bay in front of your house is ideal. A shared car park can work, but only with the freeholder's or residents' committee's permission, and often with restrictions on trailing cables across communal areas.

Flats and maisonettes are trickier. If your allocated bay sits a long way from your electricity meter, the cost of trenching a cable across a communal surface can quickly outweigh the savings. Where you rent, you will need your landlord's written consent, and in some cases the freeholder's too.

Before anything else, check the condition and capacity of your existing consumer unit (fuse board). A modern unit with spare ways and an RCD-protected supply is straightforward. An older installation may need upgrading first, which is a separate cost. A qualified electrician should confirm this, and they will also assess your earthing arrangement — some older London properties have earthing types that affect which chargers can be fitted.

One more practical point specific to the capital: many London homes have a short driveway or a front garden wall with a dropped kerb. A wall-mounted unit on the front of the house is usually the neatest solution and keeps the cable off the pavement, which matters both for safety and for staying on the right side of your council.

Understand the three charger types

Home charging in the UK falls into three broad categories.

• Granny charger (3-pin plug). Comes with most cars and plugs into a standard 13-amp socket. It adds roughly 2 to 3 kWh per hour, so a full charge can take a day or more. Fine as an emergency backup, but not a long-term solution — continuous high current through an ordinary socket is a genuine fire risk.
• Untethered 7 kW wallbox. The UK standard for home charging. You use your own Type 2 cable to connect. It adds around 7 kWh per hour, so a typical family EV goes from empty to full overnight. Because there is no fixed cable, it is tidier and works with any car.
• Tethered 7 kW or 22 kW wallbox. The cable is built into the unit, which is convenient but ties you to that connector type. A 22 kW unit only delivers 22 kW if your car's onboard charger supports three-phase — most do not, so you would still charge at 7 kW. Only worth it if you know your next car will benefit.

For most London homes on a single-phase supply, a 7 kW unit is the sensible choice. It comfortably covers 20 to 30 miles of driving per hour of charging, which is more than enough for a typical daily commute plus weekend trips.

Installation costs and what drives them

Expect a standard installation to fall somewhere between £800 and £1,500, depending on the unit and how simple the cable run is.

The variables that push the price up include:

• Cable distance. A run of 5 metres from your consumer unit is easy. A run of 30 metres through a finished house, or across a garden, is not.
• Consumer unit work. Adding a dedicated circuit, or upgrading the board, adds cost.
• Groundworks. Trenching across a driveway or communal surface can add hundreds of pounds on its own.
• Earthing upgrades. If your supply needs an earth rod or a change to the earthing arrangement, budget extra.
• Load management. If your home has a modest supply fuse, the installer may fit a device that pauses charging when other appliances draw heavy load. This is common in London and usually a modest addition.

You may be eligible for a government grant toward the cost of a smart charger, so ask your installer to confirm the current scheme rules before you sign anything. Prices and eligibility change, and it is worth checking rather than assuming.

Choose an off-peak tariff and use it properly

This is where the real savings live. A standard variable tariff might cost around 24 to 26 pence per kWh. A dedicated EV tariff with a cheap overnight window can drop to roughly 7 to 10 pence per kWh for several hours.

On those numbers, charging 50 kWh — a decent week of London driving — costs about £4 overnight versus £12 or more on a flat rate. Over a year that is a meaningful difference, and it is the single reason most EV owners switch supplier shortly after getting the car.

Two things to watch. First, some EV tariffs raise the daytime rate to compensate, so run the numbers on your whole household usage, not just the car. Second, you need either a smart charger or a car with scheduling built in to make sure charging actually happens in the cheap window. Most smart wallboxes handle this automatically and let you set a departure time, which is useful for pre-conditioning the cabin on a cold morning.

If you have solar panels, look for a charger that can divert surplus generation to the car rather than exporting it at a low rate. It is a small extra cost at installation and can pay back surprisingly quickly.

Practicalities worth sorting early

• Tell your insurer. Most policies cover home charge points, but confirm the cable and unit are included.
• Keep the cable tidy. A holster or a cable tidy stops trip hazards on shared paths and makes you a better neighbour.
• Register the unit with your network operator. Your installer normally does this, but check — it is a legal requirement for certain charge points.
• Ask about weather rating. A unit on an exposed west-facing London wall should be rated for outdoor use and have a good warranty against water ingress.
• Check your lease. If you rent or live in a managed block, get consent in writing before booking the install.

Get two or three quotes from installers who are registered under the relevant competent person scheme, ask each for a written survey, and query anything that is not itemised. A well-planned home charge point is one of the most satisfying upgrades you can make to a London property — but only if the groundwork and the tariff are right from day one.