OHME e-pod 7kW EV Charger Install — Stalybridge
OHME e-pod 7kW home EV charger installed in Stalybridge: 6mm SWA cable run from a newly fitted SPD-equipped consumer unit, tested and commissioned the same day.
What we did on this Stalybridge job
The detail behind the project — what the client needed, how we approached it, and what was specified for the future.
A homeowner in Stalybridge, Tameside, needed a 7kW home EV charge point installed and signed off the same day. We supplied and fitted an OHME e-pod 7kW unit — one of the more capable UK-designed smart chargers on the market — and ran the supply in 6mm steel-wire armoured (SWA) cable from a brand-new consumer unit fitted with integrated surge protection (SPD).
On a domestic single-phase supply, 7kW is the practical ceiling for an EV charger — that's a 32A dedicated circuit, drawing as much current as a full electric shower while the car is on charge. The cable feeding it has to be sized to carry that load continuously for hours at a time, not just briefly, which is why the standard answer for an external charger run is 6mm SWA. The armoured outer takes the abuse of being run externally or buried; the conductor is rated to carry the charger's full load without thermal stress; and the steel armour gives a mechanical-protection layer that ordinary T&E cable simply doesn't.
The SPD consumer unit matters too. The 18th edition wiring regulations (AMD2, 2022) effectively expect surge protection on most new domestic installs — protecting not just the EV charger but everything else on the board (boiler controls, smart-home kit, TVs, computers) from transient over-voltage events. Fitting an EV charger off an older non-SPD board is often a false economy: you're adding a relatively expensive piece of connected electronics to a board that doesn't protect it. On this Stalybridge install, the consumer unit was replaced as part of the same visit, which is the cleanest way to do it.
After install, every circuit was tested and the charger commissioned in the OHME app for the homeowner — without this step, the smart-charging features (off-peak scheduling, app control, integration with EV-friendly tariffs) don't work, and the unit isn't properly registered for warranty cover. We cover EV charger installs across Stalybridge, Tameside, and the wider Greater Manchester area — if you're looking at a 7kW home charger and want it specified, installed, and signed off properly in a single visit, get in touch.