A home EV charger installation involves a switchboard and supply capacity assessment, a dedicated RCD-protected circuit run from the board to the charger location, mounting and commissioning the unit, and compliance certification. A straightforward single-phase install near the switchboard usually takes three to five hours.
By Matt Durkin, licensed electrician
The number of EV charger jobs we do around Lennox Head, Ballina and Byron has climbed sharply over the last couple of years. The question we get asked first is almost always about price — and the honest answer is that the charger is rarely the variable. The install is.
Here is what actually happens, and what moves the number.
Step one: the load assessment
Before anything gets quoted, we look at what your electrical supply and switchboard can carry.
An EV charger is a genuinely unusual load for a house. Most things draw heavily in bursts — a kettle for three minutes, an oven cycling on and off. A charger pulls 32 amps continuously for six to ten hours. That is closer to running a small workshop overnight, every night.
So we check the main switch rating, the available capacity, whether the board has room for another circuit, and whether it has main-switch RCD protection. On a lot of older Northern Rivers homes the answer to at least one of those is no, and the switchboard upgrade becomes part of the job.
This is why quoting an EV charger install over the phone is close to meaningless. Two houses on the same street can differ by well over a thousand dollars.
Single-phase or three-phase
Most homes here are single-phase, and single-phase supports charging up to 7kW. In practice that adds roughly 40km of range per hour, so an overnight charge covers essentially any daily driving pattern.
Three-phase supply allows up to 22kW. Worth knowing before you get excited: many EVs have an onboard charger limited to 7kW or 11kW regardless of what you feed them. Paying for a 22kW installation for a car that can only take 7kW achieves nothing. Check the vehicle spec first.
The cable run
This is the single biggest variable in the price.
The cheapest possible scenario is a charger mounted on the wall directly on the other side of the switchboard — a metre of cable and a couple of hours. The most expensive is a charger at a detached garage 40 metres away across a driveway, which means trenching, conduit and correctly sized cable for the voltage drop over that distance.
Between those two extremes: roof-space runs are usually straightforward, runs down the outside of a wall are easy, runs through a slab-on-ground home with no ceiling access are not.
Before you get quotes, decide where you actually want the charger. Not where the cable is easiest — where the car parks, and which side the charge port is on.
Solar-aware charging
If you have solar, several chargers can be configured to draw only your excess generation, or a set blend of solar and grid. It requires a CT clamp on the main supply and a bit of configuration at commissioning, but for anyone at home during the day it changes the economics of the car substantially.
Worth flagging this at quote stage rather than after the install, because it affects which charger to buy.
Timeframes
- Simple single-phase, near the board: three to five hours
- Longer internal cable run: a full day
- Switchboard upgrade included: a full day, with power off for several hours of it
- Underground run to a detached garage: one to two days including trenching
What to have ready
When you call for a quote, having these to hand makes it far faster:
- The make and model of the car, and its maximum AC charge rate
- A photo of the inside of your switchboard with the cover off, if it is safe to take
- Where you want the charger mounted
- Whether you have solar, and its size
The compliance part
An EV charger installation must comply with AS/NZS 3000 and AS/NZS 3012, requires a dedicated circuit with appropriate RCD protection, and generates a Certificate of Compliance for Electrical Work. Keep the certificate — insurers have started asking for it, and it comes up at sale.
If someone offers to wire a charger into an existing circuit or fit it without assessing the board, that is the moment to get a different quote.
Common questions
Can I just plug my EV into a normal power point?
You can, using the portable cable supplied with the car, but it is slow — around 10 to 15km of range per hour — and a standard outlet is not designed for a continuous ten-hour load. A dedicated circuit is the safer and far more practical option.
Do I need three-phase power for an EV charger?
No. Single-phase supports up to 7kW, which fully charges almost any EV overnight. Three-phase allows up to 22kW but only helps if the vehicle's onboard charger can accept it — many cannot.
What makes an EV charger installation more expensive?
Distance from the switchboard, cable route difficulty, whether the switchboard needs upgrading, and whether the run is underground. A charger on the wall next to the board is the cheapest scenario by a wide margin.
Need a hand with this? Earth Electrical NSW covers Lennox Head, Ballina, Byron Bay and the wider Northern Rivers. Call Matt on 0412 521 992 or request a quote.