Thanks @kezo. Very little of that makes any sense to me but I can confirm that I don’t have a Smart meter. I’d really appreciate a completely non-technical answer! Assume that I know absolutely nothing about electrics, as that’s pretty close to the truth! If an EV charger can be connected to the second consumer unit box (last photo) then I think it could be workable. Ideally I’d have the charger in the garage, as that’s where I park the car, but if that’s not a workable option then a charge point on the outside wall behind the box in the last photo would be a compromise. Having to take a feed from either the main meter point on the main consumer box would, I think, be very disruptive, especially given the stone walls. This reply was modified 3 hours,
Let me try and make this a little easier to understand – Hypotheticaly f your main house consumer unit (2nd picture) was swoped with your etension consumer unit (last picture) theoretically as long as your existing electrics met regulations all systems would be go.
Not as your going to do that but, the reason I said this, is your main house consumer unit has a main witch unprotected side on the left and a RCD protected side on the right , which is known as a split board consumer unit.
You don’t want a RCD downstream of RCD with different characteristics protecting the same circuit, Also your existing RCD’s in both consumer units have enough DC voltage to contend with without adding DC from a EV on charge. We will leave going into all the details on this but, hipefully you can grasp what I have said.
The 8 way consumer unit covering your extension, does not have enough ways/not big enough to adapt into into a split board consumer unit. You can of course have it swopped for a small split load consumer unit. However I wouldn’t go the extra cost and hassle doing that. Essentially you could swop the RCD for a main switch and swop the 4 MCB’s (sockets to oven) over to RCBO’s (typically a MCB with built in RCD) Then the position marked 5 or 6 you install an MCB, that supplies the electric to the Charge point consumer unit as seen underneath the meter box on @Stuart ‘s picture.
In your first photo of the meter box you can see the 2 meter tails (cables), which come from your electric meter into whats known as a Henley block (top right of your electric meter), from the Henley block you can see a thinner pair that go to the white Wylex fuse box and a thicker pair that disapear through an hole in the meter, presumeably these are the tails that supply electric to your main house larger consumer unit. I can’t make out if there is another set of going to your extension consumer unit or can I full make out whether the tails going through the hole to the main house consumer unit are 25mm or the same size as the tails coming out of the meter into the Henley block but they look to be!
My problem standing at a computer screen is beacuase of how the builder/electrician wired the extension, I can’t see what the actuall size of tails were used to supply electric to your extension consumer unit or how or where they have connected the tails to take a supply to the extension. I’m not going to ask ou to take the cover of the consumer units but, will hazourd a guess there is another Henley block somewhere near to your main house consumer unit or they have doubled up in the main switch of your extisting home consumer unit (connected 2 cables in the live and neutral terminals of the main switch) I.E supply in to the larger consumer unit and a supply taken out to the smaller extension consumer unit. It is imposible to safely connect 2 25mm cables in both the live and neutral terminals of the main switch (larger consumer unit), without dog legging (cutting cores to make the cable smaller) or using a smaller 16mm of tails to supply electric to the extension consumer unit.
I can’t see what they have done, so it would be unfair to hazourd a guess, the fact MK boards have been used, I would say an half decent and proper job was done. Depending on the size of tails used to supply the extension consumer unit as well as the existing electrical load of your extension will determine whetheror not a charger can be fitted from the consumer unit as it is. I am away omorrow late afternoon for a couple of nights, so mull over what Ive wrote. Any questions or your not sure on, don’t hesitate to ask and if you can answer below I’ll either try to get back to tomorrow or when back.
In your meter cupboard are there 3 0r 4 pairs of tails in the Henley block?
Can you see any other electrical connections around the main house consumer unit that may indicate where the supply comes from to your extension?
Would you mind taking a fuller shot of your porch showing the meter box?
A drawing of the front perimeter from porch to garage if you can.