Home and workplace EV charger installation, including the switchboard work older houses usually need first, quoted up front instead of discovered on the day.
Why It Matters
Most of the decisions in an EV charger installation happen before anyone picks a charger. A 7 kW single-phase unit is a big continuous load. Unlike an oven or a kettle, it draws close to its rating for hours at a time, so what matters is what the supply and switchboard can carry with everything else in the house running too.
In a newer home that is usually straightforward. In a seventies or eighties home it often is not: no spare ways on the board, no RCD protection, and a main switch and supply sized for a household that never charged a car overnight. That does not mean it cannot be done. It means the switchboard work is part of the job and is priced that way from the start, rather than turning up as a surprise once the charger is already on site.
What’s Included
Assessed first, then installed. The assessment is what keeps the price honest:
Why Dextel
Licensed Electrical Contractor EC12377 | Security Agent SA54405. $10 million public liability insurance.
An electrician since 1995, and doing charger installs since the chargers arrived in Perth.
You hear back within the day, and the visit is fitted around work already booked.
Priced after a look at the board, never over the phone. No deposit under $1,000, 20% on acceptance above it.
Worth Doing at the Same Time
A charger install puts us in the switchboard and running a new circuit into the garage. That is the cheapest visit there will ever be to add anything else in the same space, because the access, the board work and the make-good are already happening. Two things are worth a thought while we are there, and both are about the garage specifically rather than a general upsell.
Detection where the car actually charges. A vehicle charging overnight in an attached garage is a good argument for detection in that space rather than relying on the alarms in the hallway. It's a different question from house smoke alarms, too. Garages run hot and fill with fumes, and a standard photoelectric alarm in there tends to nuisance-trip or end up somewhere useless. What fire authorities actually recommend for EV garages →
This does not have to start as a whole security system, which is the part most people assume. Ajax FireProtect 2 detectors run on their own without a hub. They sound their own siren, and where more than one is fitted they set each other off, so an alarm in the garage wakes the house. What they cannot do without a hub is reach your phone. Add a hub later and the same detectors start reporting to the Ajax app, so you find out while you are at work rather than when you get home, and nothing already installed gets replaced to make that happen. It is a sensible way to start at the garage and expand into an alarm when it suits you rather than all at once.
Security, while the walls are already open. We are licensed for both electrical and security work under EC12377 and SA54405, and we are an Ajax Authorised Partner. An alarm or a camera system fitted on the same visit avoids a second trade, a second set of holes and a second lot of patching. If you would rather see what a system would look like before talking to anyone, the Ajax configurator and the CCTV builder will put one together.
Common Questions
Sometimes. It depends on the supply, the main switch rating, and what spare capacity the board actually has. We check that before quoting rather than pricing a charger and discovering the problem on installation day.
Most Perth homes are single-phase, which supports up to about 7 kW. That's enough to fully charge overnight for almost any everyday driving. Three-phase allows faster charging where the property already has it, but having three-phase available is not by itself a reason to fit a faster charger.
Load management is usually the answer. The charger reduces its draw when the rest of the house is busy and makes it up later in the night, which is generally far cheaper than upgrading the supply itself.
We install to suit the property and the vehicle rather than pushing one brand. If you have already bought a charger we will install it where it is suitable, and tell you plainly if it is not.
Yes. Those turn on load management and metering far more than on the chargers themselves, particularly where several bays share one supply and the site has a demand charge to think about.
Two things, both specific to the garage rather than a general upsell. Detection in the space the car charges in, which is a different question from house smoke alarms because garages run hot and fill with fumes. It doesn't need a whole system to begin with, since Ajax FireProtect 2 detectors work on their own and only need a hub once you want alerts on your phone. And alarm or camera work, because we are already in the switchboard and already making good, so doing it on the same visit avoids a second trade and a second lot of patching. We hold EC12377 and SA54405, so it is one contractor either way.
No, and that is the common misconception. A dedicated EV charger is a fixed appliance on its own protected circuit, designed for hours of continuous draw. Charging from an ordinary socket on a lead is slower and is not intended as a permanent arrangement.
Where We Work
Dextel is based in Spearwood and works across Perth metro. Where we work →
Most service work needs nothing up front: jobs under $1,000 carry no deposit, and quoted work above that takes a 20% deposit on acceptance, as set out in our terms →
Related Reading
Tell me which charger you are looking at and I will tell you what the supply has to do. Same-day answer.