A 7kW home EV charger typically costs £800–1,500 fully installed in the UK. The charger itself is usually only around half of that. The rest is electrical work, and that's where quotes vary. Two houses on the same street can get quotes hundreds of pounds apart for the same charger, and the difference almost always comes down to two things: the state of the fuse board, and how far the cable has to travel. Here's how to read your own house before anyone quotes you.
Why 7kW is the standard
A 7kW charger runs off a normal single-phase domestic supply and adds roughly 25–30 miles of range per hour — so a typical EV goes from low to full overnight. Faster home chargers (22kW) need a three-phase supply, which most UK homes don't have and which costs serious money to install. For nearly everyone, 7kW is the right answer, and it's what installers will quote by default.
One thing worth knowing: UK regulations require new home chargepoints to be "smart" — able to schedule charging and respond to tariff signals. That's not an upsell; it's how you get the cheap overnight rates that make an EV worth running.
What moves the price
The charger unit is fairly predictable. The installation isn't. These are the factors that push a quote up or down:
| Factor | Typical effect on price |
|---|---|
| Cable run under 5m, fuse board near the drive | Baseline — the £800–1,000 end |
| Long cable run (garage at the back, meter at the front) | Adds £100–300+ in cable and labour |
| Full consumer unit (fuse board) with no spare capacity | New board typically £400–700 on top |
| Older wiring needing an electrical check (EICR) | Roughly £150–300 |
| Groundworks — cable trenched to a detached garage | Varies widely; get it itemised |
| Tethered vs untethered unit | Tethered (cable attached) usually costs slightly more |
The fuse board is the big one, and it's the same story we tell about air conditioning: modern electrical kit wants a modern consumer unit with a spare way and proper protection. If yours is an older board — or worse, an actual fuse box with rewirable fuses — budget for replacing it. Our guide to whether your home electrics can handle air conditioning covers the same ground, because it genuinely is the same ground.
Your installer will also check your main fuse and notify the network operator. If your supply is on the small side or shared with a neighbour ("looped"), the network company may need to upgrade it first — often at little or no cost to you, but it can add a few weeks, so ask early.
Do it in one visit if you can
Here's the money-saving bit most guides skip. If you're planning an EV charger and anything else electrical — air conditioning, solar, a battery — a chunk of the cost is shared groundwork: the electrical survey, the consumer unit upgrade, the certification, the electrician's day rate for turning up at all.
Pay for that once, not three times. A consumer unit upgrade done for the EV charger is the same upgrade the AC installer would have specified. If there's any chance you'll add more electrical kit in the next few years, tell the electrician now — asking them to fit a board with spare ways costs almost nothing extra, while coming back to replace a full board costs hundreds.
Charging on solar: honest expectations
Yes, you can charge your car from your roof — with caveats. A typical 4kW solar array rarely produces its full rated output, so it won't feed a 7kW charger flat out. What works in practice is a charger with a solar-matching mode, which trickle-charges the car using only your surplus. On a sunny day with the car at home, that's genuinely free miles. If the car's at work all day, it does nothing.
A home battery changes the picture the same way it does for running air conditioning on solar: it shifts your midday generation to the evening, when the car is actually plugged in. And the same cheap overnight EV tariff that charges your car can charge the battery too. If you're weighing up the whole system, start with our solar and battery page.
Worth saying plainly: even without solar, home charging on an off-peak tariff is dramatically cheaper than public charging — typically a fraction of the standard daytime rate, and a world away from motorway rapid-charger prices. The charger pays its way on tariff savings alone.
What about grants?
Grant support for owner-occupied houses ended a while back. There's still limited support aimed at flats and rented homes, and the rules shift, so check the current government scheme before you buy rather than relying on anything a sales page tells you. Don't build your budget around a grant you may not qualify for — at £800–1,500 all-in, the numbers should work without one.
The bottom line
Budget £800–1,500 for a straightforward 7kW installation, and add £400–700 if your consumer unit needs replacing. Get the quote itemised so you can see what's charger and what's electrical work — and if you're considering AC, solar or a battery as well, get them surveyed together. One visit, one board upgrade, one joined-up system.
If you'd like a hand with that, Coolhouse matches you with one vetted installer per trade — no call barrage, no pressure. Get a free quote and we'll take it from there.