EV Charger installation : BEWARE Looped supply - what are they , cost and time to correct
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- Опубликовано: 15 май 2024
- Discovering your house is connected to a looped supply can delay an EV charger installation by months. In this video, we explore how to identify a looped electricity supply, the process of being unlooped and cost implications.
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00:00 Delayed EV charger installation - Looped supply
00:40 Understanding your properties electricity supply
01:26 What is a looped electricity supply?
03:30 Why EV chargers cant be connected to a looped supply
04:10 Real examples of looped electricity supplies
06:00 How are electricity supplies unlooped?
07:00 This can affect neighbouring properties
08:10 Cost of unlooping electricity supply
09:05 Timescale to unloop electricity supply
09:46 Choose installer wisely to help with the process.
10:12 Share your unlooping experiences
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A few points from the DNO point of view.
Having 2 cables into the service position means you have a direct service but your neighbour is looped (branched) from you. One cable means nothing in most cases.
Large detached houses are unlikely to be looped.
Semi detached are almost sure to have one of them looped, probably under the floor. in this case look at yours and your neighbour and if you have 2 and he has one then it IS looped, or visa versa.
Even some new properties can be looped, in this case look for the box's that directly face each other, maybe across a path down the side of the house.
Terraced houses can be looped in 2,3,4,5 adjacent properties, often the main service into the middle and loops going either side.
If i had to say how many are looped or looped from, I would say the majority, over 70% and most likely with attached houses.
Quick history of why... to dig a hole, a trench and run cable to a property with one breeches joint would have taken a min of two days and cost X pounds.
Thats per property, but loop one and you get 2 done in practically the same timescale and the loop costs a tenth of the cost of a full joint and trench.
"This form is not built for humans to fill in, it needs an electrician" - brilliant
I received a fantastic service from my DNO. My looped supply missed by my EV charger installer but he was very concerned about the earthing. The loop was on the outside of the property and I identified it for myself and approached Western Power Distribution. I have to say they were absolutely fantastic. I had an appointment within a few days to review the situation. Within 2-days of that I received a drawing of the proposal and a date which was possibly 4 or 5 weeks after (I can't remember without checking). My neighbour was involved in the process and was happy to join in. WPD turned up on the day they promised and did the work. 60amp looped supply became a 100amp dedicated supply with PME. The cost from Western Power Distribution, FREE!
EV charger now installed and up and running.
I wanted the supply incomer position changed to support some internal re-design. Paid WPD the advance cost and an engineer came out. Took one look at the old, overhead installation and politely said that as it existed they could not disconnect me but it would be impossible to do the (4 meter) shift I wanted since the new installation was not acceptable under their current policies. Refunded my money and my electrician used 4 meter tails to connect to the new distribution board.
That’s good as have the same DNO and have just found out I’m on a loop supply - car comes Tuesday 🤦♂️
While you’re waiting for your charger to be installed you can still use the 13amp charger.
It will only give you about 10 miles range per hour of charging but if you only average 100 miles per day you will easily keep your ev battery full every morning.
Moving into my current home 3 yrs ago, I was boarding out the loft space and wondered why I had a cable running through the loft, checked out the meter and its next doors feed on a looped supply. I suppose the only consolation is that the loops on my side so I don't have to worry about digging up my driveway. Let's hope my neighbor needs an EV charger installing first.
I work for a DNO and we are manic with unlooping jobs infact I've got 2 to do tomorrow and yes it's not easy if you don't get on with your neighbours
I had my supply unlooped from my neighbours by Electricity North West for free. Both me and my neighbour were going to redo our drives, and I could see how the future is EV and thought it best to get any groundworks for supply cables out the way first so submitted EV charger install paperwork. Thankfully I get on with my neighbours as they were the ones needing the most work doing. The original supply cable came into my house, then fed next door. I kept the original cable, and next door had a new independant supply cable run in. There was a bit of negotiation with the DNO in relation to next door. Their cutout was inside the hallway, and the suggested plan was to move it to an outside cabinet. Neighbours were adamant they wanted new supply run to the existing indoor location and DNO thankfully relented and agreed to run it to the existing location. Just a point on the charger notification form - whilst it may be an electrician filling it in, if you read the small print its the householder who is ultimately the one held responsible for the information submitted.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge - great that you managed to get this sorted.
I’m in exactly this position. I had no idea until this morning when Western Power fitted my 100A cut out. But they went ahead and are handling everything for free. Brilliant service.
Really good video - sharing knowledge and highlighting the importance of a correct installation. And highlighting the requirement for notification and ENA form.
My EV charger was installed, but my supply was the first in a chain of 2 other properties being fed from the overhead cable that feeds my house with T's on each property off it. They replaced the cable with a 3 phase cable along my eaves, and each house was now fed off each phase. For free! Also each house can now easily have a 3 phase supply as the 3 phase cable runs to the end of the row of houses, with a drop off each phase.
Wow, this was the video I needed to understand all about looped supply. Thank you eFIXX team.
Got to admit, i have never come across a looped supply. Very informative today, thanks guys.
Cheers Brian - listen for the postman over the next few days.
@@efixx Thanks, will do.
I had an EV charger installed at my previous house by the charger's official recommended installer.
They weren't bothered that I had a looped supply or that I had a 60a main fuse.
Only found out that I had a loop when I contacted the DNO to ask to have the main fuse upgraded before I put the house on the market.
Thankfully only 2 of us on the loop and only my house has off-street parking, so both houses were upgraded to 100a fuses
Great video, great comments, good to note that if you have only one supply cable it doesn't mean it is a dedicated supply it may be the end of the run of a looped supply.
Complete tangent, but one that comes to mind. I own a house with a looped supply. The phase comes into my property and a set of tails disappear into the neighbours (semi detached). The neighbour has solar panels and during the day, when I work from home, my average consumption is around 0.8kW. From around 8am til 4pm the solar system next door generates > 2kW and their house uses little as the house is vacant during the day. I clamped the main incomer one day at 1pm and found a 7.6A flow. My CU tail was flowing 3.3A. Line voltage was 229V. That means the neighbour was exporting 0.99kW outside of our property. Meanwhile, I pay full whack per unit, and they get paid less than half.
Exporting energy only serves the supply company. They charge you on the way in, and the way out. The moral of this story is if you have solar or generate your own power, store it. Buy batteries. Do not export it, it's a scam.
Last year, I applied for a smart meter install (with the hope of getting an EV in the future) and was given an install date. Installer had to cancel once (illness), but at the 2nd attempt, he took one look at my supply, and said he wasn't able to touch it because it had an extra fuse in the neutral line. Several weeks later, a different spark comes out to sort the issue with the neutral only to confirm it was also a looped supply, and again, no touching it.
Fast forward several months, after getting the requisite permits from the council, my street gets closed off (yup, popular with the neighbours that weekend), my driveway gets ripped up, and eventually a shiny new supply cable is run, the loop is disconnected, and I'm now directly connected to the supply.
From start to end took around 9 months 🤦♂️ (and I still don't have a smart meter or evse installed yet) with 3 months waiting for the permit from the council to close the street. The only upside is because the initial problem (fused neutral) was something that the DNO was legally required to fix for free, the entire process has been free.
Thanks for sharing your pain - good luck getting that smart meter and EVSE!
You do understand that smart meters are designed so suppliers can eventually introduce demand pricing, eg when you use a high amount of electric say for charging an EV, using an electric shower or oven, the price will scale up during that time. They are not to save you money, why would suppliers want to make less profit?
@@aarona9332 I'm in the industry and your coment is not correct! I'll admit I can see why the comment and surelly it would make sense from a business point of view. Having said that, in the UK we still have a surplus of energy being produced in the day time. Some of that get's sold to France at a very cheap rate. Now, with the EV chargers, the suppliers could offer that surplus energy to their customers at a cheaper rate rather than selling it even cheaper to say France, or so I was told. This was one of the few explanations I was offered when in the classroom.
@@zlmdragon. good question. I imagine you’d have to ring up your DNO if you have any doubts
@@zlmdragon. I'm first on a loop, property built in 1996. Submitted an enquiry online to the DNO (Western Power) they called me 20 mins later to say next door was looped to me. WPD says that 4 way loops are not uncommon and are probably the worst to get sorted
I've seen a few of those outside cable set ups on the walls of older rural properties like blocks of flats and terraced housing where it looks like an armoured cable spaghetti explosion ,i never thought about there being looped supplies.
Brilliant video and a very important topic to learn about
A lot of the old terraced houses here in Liverpool are fed with looped supply, the cable is clipped directly to the front of the row of houses with one cable feeding 2 houses each on a 63A main fuse.
Great video always educating 🙏🏽👍🏽
Ordered an EV through a work scheme, due for delivery in March, so thought I'd get on with arranging for the charger install, which comes as part of the lease. ChargedEV did a remote survey, basically asked for specific details and photos of the meter, charge point location etc. and identified a looped supply. They've called and dropped me an email saying they're taking it up with Western Power and it seems just getting on with it on my behalf. Fingers crossed it all goes smoothly.
Another problem to look at is where flats / maisonettes , as in my case, a MICC cable comes out of the Cut out and goes to the flat above, which the DNO say is not their cable, and will not do anything with it, even though the bare undersized earth is only by a copper saddle and nut and bolt with no Gland fitted to the MICC at the cut out, just single insulated neoprene sleeve on a 100a fuse,
Really interesting video. When I had my original EV charger installed I had my fuse upgraded. Everyone involved at this point completely missed the fact that we were looped to our neighbour. Our chargers ended up failing so we decided to upgrade along with purchasing a new car at it was when this new charger was being installed that they noticed we weren’t looped. Thankfully after a number of phone calls and emails. We managed to get the DNO to sort it. All for free. Just felt bad for my neighbour who’s drive was well and truly ruined.
Great info - thanks for sharing - driveway companies could do well out of this scenario 😂
You guys makes it so easy to understand, really appreciate your time and skills. : )
Cheers Zahid
Thanks for this. I have an apparent looped supply. Although the install looked straight forward. Awaiting dno survey and results/cost/repairs etc. still looking at EVs but won't proceed until know charger is viable.
It was and probably still is common practice to loop supplies, 35mm into the cutout with a 25mm running round to next door. It had nothing to do with cost cutting, just the way the network was designed. I worked for the DNO from 1988 until 2007 and installed most domestic supply cables this way.
Really?.. not a cost cutting?... it was .just designed like that? Clearly it was designed like that to cut costs ..it literally halves the trenches to be dug, wall penetrative to be cored and live joints made to the main cable in the street with each looped property!
Interesting and informative video. I had an EV charger installed over 3 years ago when we got our EV and we discovered that we are on a looped supply. Fortunately we're number 1 of 2, (DNO confirmed that each semi has a looped supply.
So as far as I know, I'm OK but I did let my neighbour know at the time that he would have to think about this at some point. This video has prompted me to remind him.
finally we have our electricity supply unlooped by Western Power, our Octopus smart meter fitted, and our pod point charger fitted, and all this after only starting the process in March !! We have learned so much from this that we could write a book, but got there in the end and car merrily charging away as we speak, so anyone thinking of going down the EV route, please do your homework on your supply and if it is looped or not, and ensure your smart meter will fit into the space vacated by the old one (Western Power had to move the new supply to allow more room for the bigger smart meter). Good homework will save you soooooo many headaches in the long run !!
Thanks for sharing your experience 🙏
I spoke with Western Power this morning about getting an ev charger installed and they were adamant that we would have to pick up the bill for unlooping work and fuse upgrade to 100a.
Not what I was expecting from this video and others.
Was that your experience?
there is a document online "Company Directive - October 2020 : Standard Technique : SD5G/5 Part 1" Relating to the connection of low carbon technolog (EV Charge Points and Heat Pumps With A Capacity of less than or equal to 32A per Phase. In that document on page 2 it states under the heading "Impact of Changes", Western Power Distribution (WPD) will provide free of charge service upgrade costs for domestic installations (profile 1 or 2) where each item of low carbon technology has a rating of less than or equal to 32Amps. So basically they are saying as long as your EV Charger is 32A or less, then you should not be charged for the work. Why did they upgrade you to 100A fuse ?
@@paulypyro thanks for the info.
I currently have a 60A fuse.
They talked about this needing an upgrade to at least 80A to support additional ev charging.
I don't really need that as I will only charge overnight, and am happy to fit a load balanced charger.
They didn't really want to discuss in detail until they received a formal application from an installer.
Pretty disappointing, and hardly encouraging people to switch to EVs.
I had replaced like for like at 80A as we did not have electric heating or anything other than standard things like dishwashers, shower etc, so not sure why they thought 100A was needed, but just send them that doc reference and if they get funny about it take it to National Grid who have just acquired Western Power a number of weeks back, as there is no way you should be paying for it. The guys who came to do my work were superb, it was the managers who cost me 2 days off work for nothing ! It will be worth it when it's done honest lol
Cautionary tale over delays: We discovered we had looped supply when the "installer" cracked the dno supply fuse housing when fitting a smart meter, with the whole housing needing replacing. DNO originally said they would unloop as part of replacing the supply housing... Now they say council will charge them for digging up the (relatively recently resurfaced) road... This has been going on for 10 months and we're stuck with cracked supply housing covered with yellow rubber sheeting. What if the end house in the loop decides to overload the supply? They only have one incoming wire how do they know/care if the main cable in our house overheats?
This is the first I've heard of looped supplies, and it's starting to make me think a little bit. 😇
I live in a block of flats - Four per floor with three floors to the building (A common design for SE England in the early 80s), built with Eco-7 in mind and presumably phase-balanced. Night-time supply for each flat is 100A max, with a 60A max during the day.
Electrical supply is through four races up the building (One for each of the three flats on that corner) and though I've not mapped the whole setup, the supply cable for my neighbour above passes through (Not looped off) my meter box.
*But:* All things considered - Particularly that the building is set back from the road and probably sits at the end of a local loop supply off the transformer at the other end (Our road was built as a later „Add-on“ to the estate) - I'm guessing the cables are all joined together at the bottom of the races below the ground floor and a single 3ph cable connects the whole building to the utility main. ⚡
With this - And our each having 100A availability at night - In mind, does this still constitute a „Looped“ supply? What's the possibility of the supply supporting 1-2 communal¹ EV fast-chargers when these are eventually required? 😇
(¹ - They'll need to be communal as well, as only half the flats are within cabling distance of the car park and confining EV ownership to just one side of the building wouldn't be on!)
But *most of us in the UK can consider ourselves fortunate:* In Italy you're lucky if your utility supply can provide even 40A, let alone 100A! Indeed if I understand correctly, flats like mine don't get more than 25A!🔋
I'm hooked on your videos!!
Im an electrician of 30 plus years in the US. Looped supplies. Thats crazy!!
There's so much you do in your country that I would love in this country. But your " wiring methods" would never fly here.
Thanks Marc - we are indeed a common language divided by different electrical standards and methods.
What type of supplies do you have in the u.s.?
There are other types of looped feeds!
Often you get two fuses, one feeding the master and the other feeding the loop. Often you see a set of tails disappearing through a party wall to a cutout next door. Not good if you have a disagreeable neighbor ....... or if you blow the main fuse when the master is away on holiday!
There are also different types of Mural feeds! If you have an older one it may be Lead coated VIR cable! If this is the case your DNO will replace it for free. If you have a rubber one they may not do the upgrade for you (unless you have a solid earth conductor)! Again there are different wall boxes feeding Mural systems, some will be replaced once brought to the attention of the DNO. Others not so. Often there are problems with people building over the top of Mural cables complicating the issue too. Quite often you can have 4 or 5 linked together!
It is not possible to go into all the differences and which can get replaced easily on this thread. It is however DNO policy to replace loop feeds with direct feeds rather than repair the loop now. If the damage to the loop is deliberate or caused by a contractor they will charge for this though!
Had my charge box fitted by a well known supplier then had a visit by the local DNO who told me i was on a looped supply with my neighbour.( I only had the one cable in my cut out) My meter was in the hallway next to my fuse board, 4 weeks later i had a new outside meter box like in your video, the only work i had to do was cut the box into the wall as i wanted a flush mount box not an external mounted one and it was all free of charge.
Looped supply here on a 1986 built Bovis home in Bucks.
After discovering it I initially kicked getting an EV & charger into touch - just too much hassle. That was last year. Now we are faced with stupidly high gas & electric prices I started looking at a hybrid solar / battery system. So the question was did I need un-looping to have the solar system installed? After 3 calls to different depts in The National Grid & a solar installer that quoted me I'm still waiting to find out. I suspect the 3.6kW solar system doesn't need or qualify for free unlooping. However if at a later date if I wanted to add an EV charger I'm pretty sure my 60amp main fuse will have to be upgraded & the supply un-looped (I have the 2 cables in my meter box). So I'm now considering having the hybrid solar system, EV charger & a new consumer unit all installed at the same time to benefit from the zero vat rate for the entire project & not just the EV charger / Solar install. Either way it will cost me more for some equipment we don't need because we don't have an EV yet - & that's another story because they are way too expensive. However, under that situation the unlooping process should be FOC 🤞- I'm waiting for confirmation of this. As part of the process & discussions with TNG they sent me a copy a drawing showing the electrical supply routes to my house from their Maps Dept & guess what, it's wrong. The drawing shows the main incoming supply going to my neighbours house when in fact it comes into my house & loops over to my neighbour so the route it takes on the drawing will be wrong.
The main drawback with this whole process will be the mess they will have to make digging up mine & my neighbours front garden / tarmac & block paved drives in order to get at the existing cable. The other issue is that since utility prices have skyrocketed there is now a massive demand for Solar systems so install times have extended to a minimum of 4 months! One company told me they needed 2-3 months just to do a quote plus another 4 months lead time for the install itself. The DNO's are also pocketing £175 for every solar application whether it goes ahead or not. Nice little earner for them! I'm just hoping I can get some definitive answers soon so I can decide whether to proceed or give up.
I had an EV charger installed which was later notified as "not approved" by the DNO because I was on a looped supply. We didn't think it was looped because it only had one incoming coax cable and a 100A cut out. The Zappi was temporarily downrated to 60A.
The DNO said they would unloop for free and even repair the printed concrete driveway using a specialist.
They came with detecting equipment to confirm where the cable was and dug two holes in the road and one on my drive through the concrete and "moled" through but couldn't find the cable. This was a setback as everything needed re-scheduling and the road holes filled in as the licence was only for 10 days.
In the intervening time I built my own detector using some transformer cores and using a signal generator and oscilloscope was able to detect the true path of the cable (not as the DNO records had it) and estimate the depth. I left a very convincing trail of pieces of yellow insulation tape every 100mm. The path had the shape of a cable thrown into the ground as you might expect.
When the team returned to have another go at finding the cable. They confirmed their readings agreed with mine but also that they could pick up a signal on one of the three detecting modes of their wand in the first hole position (as the plans had it) but where there was no cable. My detector found nothing there.
They dug through the concrete in the new position where it crossed the mole path and found the original cable exactly where and at the depth I'd triangulated it to.
The job proceeded to plan after that and I have a full powered Zappi and have since installed 8kW of PV with home battery on a G99 and a heat pump driven from the PV reducing bills by 75%.
Although the DNO had incorrect old map records from 1970 when the house was built and were fooled by a false signal I can't praise them more highly for their support, freely given information and assistance during the whole process.
If you don't know if you're on a looped supply and you are on good terms with your neighbours, ask to have a look at their cutout. if the properties either side (and yours, of course), have a single supply cable, it's most unlikely that the supply is looped. For an overhead feed it should be easier to trace anyway.
Hi everyone. I’ve just found out from my DNO that even though I am on a looped supply (my neighbour is looped off me) I can still have a standard 7kw/h charger (podpoint). Apparently this is possible as I have a 3 phase supply. Hope this helps someone out there who is in a similar position. I’m now waiting for podpoint to book my install. Car hopefully arriving this month.
Great video guys.
Nice! Thanks for sharing! 😊
Such quality videos for electricians not sure on what to do especially apprentices. Great guys and great knowledge
Please can you do a video covering BS7671 Regulation 512.1.5?
Love the content guys keep it up👍
I have a looped supply to my house, just two houses on the loop. SPEN are happy to just upgrade the cable between the houses and the fuse. Surely a new cable during unlooping could be moled in? I'm having this down with our water supply soon. Saves digging up the garden or driveway, just a small hole in footpath, and near house, assuming a straight run.
I was unlooped about 6 months ago - terraced house with cables overhead. I filled out the form - no need for an electrician at all, emailed it to Western Power and they did the work three weeks later for free. It was in fact my neighbour that had to unlooped from me, so apart from removing the cable from my fuse block, all the work was next door and Western Power did all the arranging of times and access with my neighbour for me too - once I submitted the form, I did not a thing! Excellent service from Western Power.
Western Power seem very proactive on this - thanks for sharing 👍
Overheads much easier and cheaper, all that digging etc. just to look nice !
I can imagine neighbours who don’t have good relationships suffering increased lead times!
We have that very problem, thankfully our supply comes in from above from pole outside our property, and we are primary supply to ours and neighbours. Our DNO is separating supplies and they have said if replacing existing 16mm it will cost nothing, but if they estimate we would use more than 80A usage then they will fit 25mm cable and we will be charged. We don't have electric heating and only shower and hob plus charging car overnight so unlikely to get near 80A.
Looped supply isn't always bad. If you have a good neighbor you may benefit from this supply type. I know one which have better power supply then any other because of his loop.
His neighbor is still a 110kV substation. If you are in an arm length of a main fuse you had to contact the power supply company if you plan to draw high loads. Each machine use 7.5 kW and he had a ton of this in the workshop (maybe 120kW). Same where the guys which build server containers (10MW - 30MW), they even had a substation in the front yard. I'm waiting for the chargers which phone the power company each time they will draw power (22kW to 280kW chargers). There is now only an on and off signal for heat pumps, but a more gradually load shifting might be the future.
Looped services are quite common in Northern Ireland especially Housing Executive houses built in the '60s to the '80s. I've often wondered about the fire safety risk when EV's are being connected especially in those houses that also have electric showers. As time goes by the risk will increase as more people get electric vehicles.
Great input - thanks David
Very interesting video.only 3 weeks ago I was fitting a smart meter for a customer who was waiting for an ev charger to be installed.i had to call the dno out for an A code who explained she was on a looped supply with no indication at her property.however the dno said they would separate the supply and cover the costs.ive learnt something g new.
Great video/s many thanks
Great input - Thanks Steven
I think on this occasion the dno said the ev instillation wouldn't be a problem and they would sort the looped supply out at a later date.
Do we recon this will appear in a possible amendment to to Bs7671:18?
When I looked into this five year or so back when I changed the CU, the downstream property can get a direct connection FoC but not the upstream one, which is this place.
Great vLog guys, never seen one in 40+ years in the industry. Raises concerns if you are about connect to the one at the end of the loop and was not aware of the loop supply from next door.
My son and I have both brought EV's this year as previously had a company vehicle which was a plug in hybrid, my employer arranged to have a Pod Point EV charger to be fitted to my property about 6 years back. However now we decided to update the EV charger to make it compatible with my current supplier and take advantage of the special EV tariff on offer thinking that it would be a simple straight forward switch over the the charger, When the installer came round we found that my property has a looped supply and the installation could not go ahead. My supplier has now submitted an unlooping request to the DNO but it has left us in a difficult position.
I had it done 2 years ago when I went on the OVO v2grid and needed their charger fitted , it was all free .
Have you checked for volt drop Tom, as I’m wondering if you new floodlights are getting a borderline voltage at cut off point? (Undervoltage)
I just have the one cable coming into my main cut out. Though you also mentioned that this isn't always proof that my supply is unlooped , so will my DNO have a record of my property as to whether my supply is looped or not? Many thanks.
Great video and well explained. Never come across one yet.
A few housing estates built round my way in late 60s and early 70s all looped
I've had loads now. Most of the time only one cable was visible at the cut-out and it was the DNO who notified me that the supply is looped after checking their plans.
Thank you eFIXX. This has exactly addressed the situation I now find myself in. UK Power Networks arrived yesterday to fit my 100amp fuse, only to discover we're looped to our next door neighbours. The DNO are being super helpful and I'm hoping it can all be resolved without cost and without too much hassle. Fortunately, my EV is still a few months away.
Glad it helped
Interesting video.
The only comment I will make is that the majority of households pay a monthly Standing charge, so they have already paid for upgrade to their supplies.
To upgrade a supply that's with the DNO (UKPN) and the standing daily charge is paid to the metering company for the rental of their equipment i.e electric meter. Two seperate things.
I live in an ex council semi detached property (1950s), I do have a looped supply however one cable comes up into main fuse chassis and then it loops through wall into neighbours side. This seems a bit different to the double cable examples you showed.
I don't have an electric car yet, but applied for a higher rated fuse (induction hob and the likes) and the DNO installed an 80amp fuse my side, and said that's the max they can do on the supply. They did say next door had a 60amp and now I have an 80 amp they would not be able to up their side as that's the limit, so it's good in a way I got that done first!
Somewhat good news for me at least, like your video stated, is that I am the main incomer, so the majority of the future work should be on next doors inconvenience and not me. But I really do think with the explosion of EV this will be a major headache for the DNOs for years to come.
I think I agree with you. Thankfully, I have neither owned nor driven, any vehicle since 1982, so I won’t have the problem.
This reminds me of the problems upgrading the supply to a college where I used to work. We were fed at 6.6 kVA from a nearby, overloaded, 33/6.6kVA substation. The intention was to move to an 11 kV supply from another substitute a few hundred metres away. Our transformer was swapped for a new one with a dual Voltage primary, but then the problems started with various obstructions to the route where they wanted to run the new HV cables. After two years these problems hadn’t been resolved when I left. I have to say that whoever spec,’t up the original installation in the 1950s did a good job of it, our load would have been vastly greater than it was then.
@@srfurley agree. They built for longevity back in the day.
I am considering an EV this year, so really timely and helpful content, thank you @eFIXX. 👍 My house was the last to be built in my road, by many years - it was an infill plot. How would I be able to spot if I were the last property in a looped supply example? E.g. like Property 2 in your looped supply graphic. From the perspective of looking in the meter box, It looks identical to a single dedicated supply property example.🤔 Many thanks, Adrian
You probably need to have a look at your neighbour's supply to see if yours is coming from theirs
This is great but we live in the country and have overhead lines and I have spent hours trying to find out how to recognise a loop system for overhead supply. Having ordered the EV charging point the company turned up to install the EV charge point but seemed to have an excessive lack of knowledge so we started to research our situation. During this time we had considerable trouble getting the installer back on site after he made several excuses as to why he could not do the installation on the original day. We ended up contacting the DNO and they were very helpful in booking an appointment to survey the connection which will be on the 4th October but at least we feel as if we have moved the process further on. We are extremely worried about the service we have had from Pod-Point so far as they just wanted to refer us back to the DNO when the DNO had told us that the installers should had done a load test. This is awful when you think you are dealing with professionals.
Sadly there are a lot of poor installers out there
Got un-looped for my charger install, we had the primary input for 2 houses on a semi detached plan built in 1947.
We found out we were looped several years ago when the 1947 fuse for the house next door came loose, shorted and started smelling of burning tar and glowing ominously (a quick emergency visit by Scottish Power replaced the old fuses with 2 new fuses.
The unlooping was all handled by the pod point people, went entirely without a hitch as next door had no objections to a free upgrade and their front garden is stone chips with planters (so no problem with digging it up and reinstating it.)
Great info - thanks for sharing
This is common in glasgows 4 in a block cottage style houses . I only found out it was not a normal thing elsewhere when I went on ev charging course last year and the lecturer who was from England asked us who had saw it and all 8 class members raised their hand
I found when doing an EICR on my best mates house literally across the park from me, a looped supply. Houses at the max are 22-24 years old. mine was the last to be built. so 1999. I find it hard to believe they were still doing that then or it was just cost cutting.
Thanks for the great content!
I had my EV charger (7kw, 32amp) installed over 5 years ago but it was only pointed out to me last year that my supply is looped (I'm first in the chain - my supply loops out to my neighbour).
I've asked him about unlooping but he doesn't seem to care about it and now I can't contact him.
Is it possible to get a new supply to my premises and the just keep the existing loop in place, just supplying him?
Having a EV charger on a looped supply is overloading supply cable,contact your DNO to come & inspect.Had WPD un-loop my supply & run a new supply to me free of charge.
Mine is on a looped supply, approved by the DNO in a day. Had to have load management on it and not exceed 60amps. Never been close yet 👍🏻
Hi Boys. Love the content.
I've got a 60A looped supply, which is fed from my neighbours house. 1960's semi. I looked into getting a charger about a year ago, and even applied to my local DNO for a 100A supply. I didn't proceed with the application as I was of the belief that the Zappi's load management settings could manage the supply constraint.
A local OLEV installer surveyed yesterday and was very firm in saying that I couldn't get an EV charger installed officially (via the OLEV scheme) without unlooping and getting 100A supply.
Is this the case? Has there been a change of stance from the DNOs or the regs? Is load management not deemed scalable and sufficient if everyone gets EV chargers?
Yes zappi (myenergi) insist applications must be sent to dno before any works on looped supply begin. They also said 90% will fail application on looped supply even with load management as you need to prove to them how the load will NEVER go above certain amps.
With access to the start of the loop, and if it has a split tail there, a current clamp on the feed should be all it needs to protect it against overload. But I guess the DNO won't run with that, seeing how that clamp could easily be disconnected or disabled in the charger(s)...
I live in Sheffield in the end of a row of 4 terrace houses built around 1950’s. Thinking about getting an ev and installing a charger. We are the only house with a driveway. Found out we have a looped supply but we are running a 100A fuse, however I think it will be too big of a job. Plus the neighbours are a nightmare.
Learn something from every video. In my opinion it should always be free as we pay a standing charge to maintain the network. They got the general install of the network for free as it was done on public money so anything on the supply side should be provided as part of the standing charge or is standing charge just there to make money for the privatised utilities even when we move to mostly solar at home.
What is the red thing around both sides of the armoured cable called ? Is it an isolator so you can work with the cable live?
My wife had an EV charger installed and it wasn’t until I asked the DNO (Western Power Distribution) for an increased supply capacity (for a new EV i had) that we discovered it was a looped supply. We were property 1 in the chain. WPD we’re not happy that the EV charger had been installed and said we should have had the installation inspected when it was done. I was able to prove that they had indeed visited and inspected at the time and no recommendations were made. Nevertheless, they arranged to unloop the properties at no cost to me and did so in a very professional and tidy manner within week or so. This included digging a big hole in the patio then putting a resin splice thing to link the neighbour to the street cable and a new cable to our cut-out. The patio was reinstated and made good. They also replaced the cutout. They upgraded our supply from 65A to 80+A (I forget the exact value). Overall very pleased with the result. 1968 property, Staffordshire Moorlands area.
Kudos to WPD for sorting this and making everything safe again.
Thanks for sharing your experience Simon very useful.
if you have PV system and battery storage the demand on the looped supply would be reduced and maybe the incoming supply will be fit for purpose ? everyday is a school day great video Efixx 👍
informative af 🙂
I've came across this a couple of times but as I'm fitting load management it's after the evcp is installed and the dno has just asked me to down rate them just now
Great content as always! If you are the first property in the loop feeding more than two propertd, could the DNO run a new cable to your property cutout and just join the original looped cable together removing you property from the loop but still keeping the other properties in the loop feed. This would remove the need for you neighbours consent in case you are not on good terms with them or don't belive you will consent to the work?
A lot would depend on the nature of the existing installation, I think. If you look at my earlier entry above, and have a look at my entry on a local cable renewal job ( ruclips.net/video/LS8VFhRMsYY/видео.html ) you’ll see a typical arrangement.
In my case, if I wanted an EV charger, they would probably have to install a new service cable to next door and transfer it off the spur (loop) - it only has two houses on it, or if next door went first, it would still need a new service cable. Either way, there would need to be some digging up of the Council owned patch of land - under grass in my case - and some work under next door’s drive as well. I guess they might be able to disconnect the cable to next door inside their meter box on my house and do the connection to their feed in the same cabinet to the new cable (those items are their property, not mine), but it might look a bit odd compared with installing a continuous cable from the buried service cable to next door.
The addition of any new service cable to the distribution cable would cause some disconnection to a batch of other places on the same cable, with it being cut and connected into another connection unit underground. In general in my street, the smaller houses are on two house spurs, with the larger ones with dedicated service cables. Note that I already have a 100A master fuse, and can theoretically draw up to around 80A quite easily for heating etc - but things like that are covered by “load diversity” regulations etc. It appears that EV charging is not dealt with in the same way now.
Just to clarify as it wasn't mentioned in the video; I take it the side with only 1 cable in the cutout is the one to contact the DNO? as they're getting power from the neighbour(s) with 2 cables? Would/do the DNO have a register of properties with looped feeds? Asset management type thing.
I was thinking of installations, now I'm not lol.
What about load sharing with solar battery installations, as at best there would be little load from the dno line of the person uses the system correctly...
And likely to use it correctly.
They can be programmed can't they?
Reduced charge or selective charge?
Hi efix,
Would this issue be resolved if the EV charger has a balanced load function (as the Pod point and Zappi have) that automatically reduces the charge rate when the household demand/load is high?
The problem is you can’t control the power being drawn by an adjacent property.
@@zlmdragon. Also have to think about the supply cable before it is split. Every night that will have a constant load on it, like a spur on a ring.
If you are in the home with the main feed and next door Is effectively tapped off your cable head can you not demand this anomaly rectified?
Also the property with the other end of the loop will not know.They have one SWA glanded into their fused supply that will be identical to most homes
Useful video - thanks. In Western Power's patch, the properties which need the new supply are likely to get a 3 phase cutout as part of their 'Superfast Electricity' policy.
And whilst mine was a 3 phase upgrade from an existing unlooped supply, Western Power seem to be very EV friendly and the service from West Northants office was amazing.
WP are very proactive with regards to EV - All new properties are fitted with 3 phase cables. (although not all developers use it)
Yes WP are fitting 3 phase cutouts but the property is still only using a single phase with a single phase meter so pretty pointless. Unless I'm missing something.
@@williamsanter1153 It means that the capacity can be tripled without digging (explained to me as a phase for the charger, one for the heat pump and one for the house). It also means that they can move properties between phases to try to improve the phase balance.
@@williamsanter1153 Future proofing. Well done them.
Phew, as ordered an EV last week, arriving next week and found out on looped supply. We are also covered by West Northants office of western power. How long did it take to resolve?
If you’re on the end of a looped supply with just one incoming could you tell in anyway that it is? As I think it would just look like a standard TNC/TNCS.
An interesting, no-nonsense video. Thanks! I searched it out because our neighbours across the road have just gone through this (SSE are clearing the barriers down as I type). I don't know the ins and outs of it (bad pun?) but I have a couple of questions. 1) Why was looping considered an option for, say, detached houses, where the looping cable would probably be longer than a cable direct from road to each house? 2)If you're at the end of the loop you'll only have one cable coming in so how do you know you're not looped? 3)Don't the electricity boards or council have the info (clearly, not!). And, finally: In west London, housing developers are being denied permission to build as electrical capacity isn't up to handling any additional load. This got me thinking: if the sales of electric cars increases as expected will the National Grid have enough oomph (technical term) to deal with the demand? Thanks again.
All good questions Martin. Looped services are rare on detached properties. The DNOs do have records but only correct these on a reactive basis when an installers asks for permission to connect. It’s at this time when someone at the end of the loop finds out. With regards to capacity of the grid it’s a rapidly shifting landscape check out this video 👉 ruclips.net/video/s7nODxkzIpI/видео.html
So my property was built in 1927, its a mid terrace and the powerlines are above ground, it has one cable from the telegraph pole that goes to a junction box on the wall there's then 2 cables coming out of the box, one cable goes to my electric meter, the other to my neighbours, what would this be classed as?
BTW we had the house fully rewired when we bought it 3 years ago so has modern electrics and fuse box.
What about a set of garages that after the service head the DNO used a Henley block to feed 6 garages which each have there own meter ..so not looped prior to the head ...love your vids but what do think we should do here in thi situation ?
Drop us a picture and we’ll see what we think 💭
@@efixx will do , you guys are ace , what the best way to send
Any chance of doing a video for an install about how you’d go about doing an install for someone living in a flat?
So if I assume that there are 1-3 supplies @ 80A. Does this mean that the DNO could increase the main fuse on a single installation to 160-240A, transformer dependant supplying the single fed property (Not a looped one)? This would get a lot of people out of trouble when they have multiple high load circuits e.g. heat pump, elec shower, elec hob(large), self cleaning oven, possible annex and the dreaded EV charger. There are many properties around as described minus the EV charger running on a 100A head. I would like to hear your thoughts
Will depend on the current carrying capacity of the installation, to run higher amperage requires much thicker cable, standard 25mm cable maxes out at 111amp, 16mm maxes out at 83amp, it’s not just the service head supply, you need to also understand OHMs law to understand how much load you will need to be pulling to justify a huge jump in fuse rating
could you confirm that this looped supply includes TN-C-S. i know that older TT & TN-S was, my house was coveted from TT to TN-C-S back in the late 80s, as a terraced house next door was looped but it had to be removed and given separate feeds from the over head lines Reason given by DNO installer voltage potential on the neutral might rise above 2 volts.
Had similar from UKPN who were great came out upgraded 60A to 80A as stop gap then came back & ran a new cable overhead after a few hours was all done & Free.
If you are in property 2, how would,you know it’s looped, as it’s only one DNO supply cable?.
If you’re in luck the dno may have plans which show it.
The fuse carrier in property 1 melts when you charge your Tesla
When you’re 98% through the process they tell you😩 .
That is a very good question. An answer may be a while coming I suspect.
Contact your DNO, they have the plans. I only have one cable inside my house but this is because there's a transformer outside the house, under the drive, which has a cable running to next door.
Hi. I'm assuming that it wouldn't be House 2 where the issue would be but with House 1, where the initial supply is taken then looped to House 2.?
We are just starting on the unlooping process.
car on order (but delayed) and charger installed today, Obviously can’t be turned on as we have found we have a looped supply.
Installer is in process of contacting DNO to see what we can do to get this resolved, let’s see how this works out with electricity north west.
Great videos by the way, really useful.
Good luck 🤞 let us know how you get on
DNO due to visit next week to check looped supply and propose next steps.
They confirmed records show we have a loop and have denied the CP install, a bit late as the electrician has already installed the unit. it's turned off at the minute but might be interesting when the DNO arrives for the checks.
Well the saga continues, we know we have a loop but we dont know where it goes.
DNO have been three times now and still cannot find were the cables go, they were due to come dig the garden and chop the cable to see which house / houses go off.
A very nice lady arrived two weeks back and agreed to disconnect at the cutout, we will still see who goes off and it saves a dig as they wouldn't do the unlooping at the same time. We still have no date as to when this will be done.
It's no massive issue mind, car delivery has been pushed back to Jan 2023 as Audi cannot deliver due to part supply and build delays.
We cannot have the drive sorted as we don't know where DNO will be digging, local authorities won't complete the kerb drop extension until the drive is done.
Turning into a bit of a mission this one hehehehe
Progress! A dig team are booked for 20th and the unlooping due to complete on 21st assuming they find what they expect 😀
And we are unlooped, as promised we had a dig team arrive and remove the front garden hehehe
Neighbours got their own feed and we are now on 100 amps after they upgraded the mains incoming cable from the street, so new cable and cutout and we now have a fully functioning EV charge point.
It's been a slog but it's done now and was still FOC for me to have the works done by Electricity Northwest, the guys do say at some point they expect people to start seeing charges but not just yet.
Never seen a looped supply ,must get out more!
Seen a few in our area... very often it's flats above shops (as in the old song :) )... shop has the main supply, flat is looped out. Got an install in a few weeks (nowt to do with a car charger, but a typical paperwork based issue): the DNO (SSE) want US (customer's electricians) to install 50x50 Galv trunking up the outside of the takeaway, to the flat above, to take a new PME (TN-C-S) supply up the wall, and to help them feed the concentric cable through into the flat because.... they're an underground crew, and not authorized to climb ladders. To get a ladder trained crew would cost hundreds extra!
I have a quick question about solar panels and looped supplies. My parents share a 60amp supply with their neighbours, I don't know how long the run is, but the house at the end of the run is getting solar panels. Will this be a problem?
This has me very worried I have the car already and I'm in process of getting quotes for chargers I’ve sent pictures to a few and none have said anything about the y cable coming into the master 100A fuse.
Our experience... we are in 'property 1' where the neighbour is looped into our supply. When enquiring about getting a wall charger installed some 2 years ago, we were advised by an electrician that the installation would be fine until 'property 2' required his own wall charger installing. In fact, we could not instigate property 2's upgrade solely by us requiring a wall point! (an added complication is that next door is a rental property, with the owners living overseas). Hence we have had a basic Rolec wall charger installed for over a year (no issues... no free 'heating' in the garage). Because we only charge overnight (@7kw/hr for 4 hours, at off peak rate) perhaps twice a week, I cannot see any load problems with the original electricians statement (although he was probably inexperienced on the subject at the time?). For info, the neighbour does not have night storage heaters. So, should we chase the DNO for a split, or just keep an eye out for next door getting an EV. As an aside, some years back, one tenant had a wall point installed for his BMW PHEV (no, not an i3)... this was removed when the left, and at that time we thought nothing of it... us not being in the EV market (obviously nobody twigged that the property was at the end of a looped supply either) . Your thoughts please... and do you think the DNO will stop us using our charger if I point out the existing situation?
If you don't have a smart charger or claimed the OLEV (OZEV) grant then the ENA form probably won't have been submitted. So the DNO may not beware of the problem.
@@efixx Correct, not a 'smart' Rolec, hence grant not applicable! I'm sure any new tenants will talk EV with us (living up North, we are generally a friendly lot), so we will be able to give them an insight into the looped supply situation when it becomes relevant.
The situation concerning about this is so many EV points are installed on price by lower graded installers that they simply won't dedicate any time or cost to checking
It's also not uncommon if you are on an overhead supply to have singles feeding your cutout so having 2 cables coming in might not be a loop
Not just overhead supplies. Our underground TN-C-S supply cable appears as two cables at the cutout but one is yellow (live) and one is black (neutral/earth). Our house was built in 1982 iirc.
Great video. I have one thick cable coming up from the street that then separates into two like a ‘V’ shape, with each cable going into the left and right side of the DNO fuse box. My neighbour has the same. Is this a looped supply? We both have 100A fuses and live in linked-detached houses that were built in 2000.
The cable always has to split to go to the live and neutral (and earth if TN-S) terminals. On a typical modern cutout it splits in the bottom of the cutout enclosure, but some setups have the split covered by a flexible "boot" instead of being inside an enclosure. That isn't a sign of looping.
@@petermichaelgreen Thanks Peter. Yes, it looks like a single cable with a V shaped boot separating into two parts both going into the bottom of the DNO box (or whatever that bottom thing is called)!
@@petermichaelgreen Hi this sounds like my supply - the house was built in 2001 and is a detached house on a new estate all built post 2000. There is a single cable into the wall meter box which splits into 2 inside the box with a rubber Y junction before both connect into the bottom of the main fuse setup, both cables are black. The fuse is only 60a but on checking next door their setup is exactly the same? So is this likely not a looped supply but I just need to request the fuse increasing?
Cant you get around this with load monitoring EV Chargers? So they detect if too much wattage is being drawn and lower the ev charger capacity accordingly??
Recently found out that DNO's sometimes supply two houses from one pole, with a single phase supply to the pole and this is effectively a looped supply. Never seen this addressed in any training or documentation. Maybe something to add to a future video.
How would you know if you were on the split load if you were on the secondary side and only one cable appeared at your mains. ?
I ordered an in stock EV car on my employers salary sacrifice scheme a couple of weeks ago. For the video review with the ev charger company it looks like I’m on a looped supply in a detached house as I have two cables. I’m waiting for ukpn to visit my house to determine next steps. I yhought this would cost my thousands as I’ve got to dig the garden up for the charger anyway then found about this looped supply problem. I’ve cancelled the ev car and ordered a phev one instead as I am simply not paying thousands for a charger. Hopefully the unlooping is free but digging the garden and driveway up to install a charger isn’t going to be cheap so I’ll most likely not bother when total costs are calculated and just go with phev cars in the future and just not bother charging it much, I can use a 3 pin plug in the garage but it’s not enough for the ev cars. This net zero to electric cars isn’t going to happen en mass. I had know idea the charger would be so complicated, my armoured power cable that goes to the garage isn’t good enough apparently so it’s all got to be dug up, which I ain’t doing as I need a new kitchen and need to invest in stocks over a bloody ev charger
How’s this for a nightmare installation. I’m on a looped supply, 60A incoming fuse. Asked DNO to upgrade to 80A to allow EV charger to be installed and down rated, with plans in place to unloop me. They wanted 25mm tails installed (I had 16) so asked electricity supplier to arrange visit to change these. When they turned up they couldn’t do it as the incoming fuse only has terminals big enough for 16mm, so back to DNO who agreed to do the fuse and housing to 80A to start with.
Phone call from DNO a week before they are due to visit, they need to dig up my drive to cut the power cable before working on the fuse, so this was arranged for the day before. On that day, they had issues locating the cable but dug where they thought it would be - no luck. After they left, I got a phone call - turns out I’m on an even worse version of the looped supply than I thought - something called a rydon or ryland loop (can’t recall the correct wording for it). Basically one power cable comes in to my neighbour then is looped between 5 other houses! No wonder they couldn’t find the cable under my drive, just wished they looked at the plans first.
So now, each house needs its own cable installed and fuse upgraded which means it’s now been moved up to the major projects team at the DNO. This could be months before any progress is made, and in the mean time, I have a PHEV arriving soon (luckily it’s a PHEV so I’m not reliant on the electric side of it) no charger installed, and a couple of unhappy neighbours with the prospect of having the DNO rip up their drives and living room flooring to get to the electric cupboards in the middle of their houses just so I can have an EV charger 😩
Wow, boxes of chocolates to all the neighbours in order then? 😬
Been unlooped. Bought the car, bought the charger. They saw pictures of the supply and told it was looped. This was in November (we were in a lockdown tbf).
Took until March until it was installed. They were obviously busy, but the length of time waiting for the unlooping was frustrating.
Thanks for sharing your experience.