There's a simple diagram of who owns which parts of your electricity connection at Replace a Meter Board | UK Power Networks (for "UK Power Networks" in that, read "your DNO"). I'm no electrician, but the sequence of work needed if every part needs replacing seems to be:

1. The consumer unit (fuse box) and house wiring may need to be made safe by an electrician you find and pay.
2. An isolation switch may be needed (you'll own one end of that, and your electricity supplier will own the other end); and the meter and the tails -- those thick grey wires -- need to be brought up to standard for the power rating you'd like to use. All of this is the responsibility of your electricity supplier, the company you pay the bills to. In my case, they didn't charge for fitting an isolation switch and replacing all the tails leading to it with thicker ones.
3. The incomer and the big mains fuse belong to your DNO, who will upgrade their equipment if it's very old, or dangerous, or can safely be uprated to match the rating of the meter, the tails and the consumer unit. Again in my case, I haven't been charged for it.
4. Last of all, you can pay for the installation and connection of your EV charge circuit, usually done by adding another small consumer unit, connected with the isolator switch turned off for a few minutes.

I've just finished step 3. Number 1 was four years ago as part of other work done on the house; numbers 2 and 3 were both needed as well to get a 100 A supply. Number 4 will need a trench digging and a post setting up, separately to the electrician fixing the cable, charge point and connection stuff.

 

Need to see consumer unit if there's spare capacity go from there it's a pme system (tncs) so you'll need some pen fault protection or so they say. Service tails to meter are for the dno to deal with or may not be necessary.

Sent from my POCOPHONE F1 using Tapatalk

 

DNO - Distribution Network Operator, the people who actually bring the electricity to you.
Your isolator switch goes between your meter and your consumer unit ("fusebox"). It can be fitted by anyone with permission to remove the DNOs fuse (the main fuse in the top left of the picture), which can be a suitably qualified electrician working for you, your electricity supplier (OVO) or the DNO.
Looking at the picture there doesn't appear much space to the right of the meter to locate an isolation switch on the board, particularly not with the black armoured (?) cable running presumably out to another building. I'd suggest that the OVO "Engineer" thinks that the switch needs fitting below the current board which requires more than just cutting the existing tails between the meter and the CU - they need replacing with longer ones even to reach to sufficiently below the board to mount the switch. Why he couldn't/wouldn't do that is open to debate. Maybe he wanted them on the same board which requires the DNO to fit a larger board, maybe OVO don't allow him to open up the CU which can unearth a nest of unrelated issues that he'd be duty bound to deal with.
Most trades I know like a bit of overtime at this time of year, and I think that your assumption that he wanted away may be unfair.
You and the installer were sold a pup by whoever booked the appointment without checking the space on the board first. It may be that the installer has seen similar properties to yours (is it one of a number similar on an estate?) in which case he knew he was onto a loser when he pulled up outside.
OVO have clearly messed up. Everyone makes mistakes, you'll see their quality (or otherwise) by how they resolve it. You could apply direct to your DNO (details on your bill) for the board to be moved/replaced but there's likely to be a cost. OVO may carry that cost so I'd start by pursuing it with them.

Edited to change reference to armoured cable - it may not be.

 

When our electrician added a 2nd CU, he just added a small back board within the cupboard and mounted the Henley block on that. I was hoping that the isolation switch could be added along side when our meter is changed.

Perhaps a similar separate back board would work for the OP below the meter.

p.s. Is that not an odd place for a phone socket?

 

Why did they send an engineer to fit an isolating switch? 3 years at university, 2 years post graduate training and 2 years responsible experience to end up doing that. No wonder he was fed up.

 

No doubt their 'engineer' fell a little short of barneyd's expectations !

Mostly they'd have a couple of years working as an electrician's mate and a two week training course with new employer. Real engineers are unlikely to make a site visit for any job valued under ten grand !

 

OVO

Their customer support isn't as good as it used to be. I feel your pain

 

Why do they need an isolation switch for a ZOE? is it to make their life easier or is is because of the issue where it can trip the main fuse board for the house?

I wondered, if it might be possible to fit the charger to the separate RCD I have for my cooking and kitchen sockets. This comes off another 100A fuse from the main board. Does that make any sense?

 

First observation is that the CU in those photos has a major defect - taping over access to a live busbar is close to being criminally negligent, so urgent action is needed to make the installation safe. Not hard or expensive to fix, it just needs proper blanks to to be fitted so fingers cannot get in there and touch the live busbar that's just below the bottom of those openings. These are available here: Hager 1 Module Blank for Hager Boards To fit them the supply must be both isolated and properly dead tested before removing the cover and clipping them into to the rail to fill the blank holes. There is an electric shock risk if the bus bars remain live when doing this, hence the reason to dead test to be sure first,

To answer the question, that RCD is a Type AC so is unsuitable for protecting any charge point installation. Always very much better to fit a separate connection box for a charge point, with it's own dedicated RCB or RCBO, both because it's slightly safer (avoids heat build up in the main CU) and because it removes the possibility of nuisance tripping on the shared RCD circuits in the main installation.

 

I just checked and when our cooker has all the hobs, cookers and grill on, it could be 17kW total load. Just checking and when our cooker has all the hobs, cookers and grill on, it could be 17kW total load.

 

In my case BP will not install a charge point without being able to turn the house electrics off so that they are safe.

 

Thanks for your help. I think there has been some shoddy electrical work and I will seek out a qualified electrician to help resolve these issues.

I think I have a better understanding of the whole install now and hopefully I can get something sorted soon.

Thanks again

 

It's not the worst I've seen, TBH, and it's a very easy fix to blank those holes and make the CU safe.

I should have added earlier that the 63 A RCD is already at/over it's safe current limit with the cooker and kitchen ring final circuits anyway, so has no spare capacity. The cooker circuit has a 50 A MCB and the kitchen sockets a 32 A MCB, and allowing for diversity that gives a total load on that 63 A RCD of between 61 A and 66 A (using the diversity method in Appendix A of the On Site Guide to BS7671:2018).

 

Is it a coincidence that the installation details sticker is blank?

Daisy chaining through the main CU to a secondary one can be OK but isn't best practice for high continuous loads like EV charging points and it can be difficult to manipulate all of the relatively large diameter cables. Much better at this point as suggested by @Jeremy Harris to cut your losses and add another CU straight from the tails either via a suitable four way isolator or henley blocks.

 

Is it a coincidence that the installation details sticker is blank?

Might just be that the last person to inspect it used their own sticker on the outside. I keep a stock of generic stickers and just fill one out and stick it on the outside of the CU after an inspection. Some use personalised stickers that give their trading name and contact details, something I've always thought to be a very good idea, as it probably indicates they have a fair degree of confidence in their own work.

 

Only the same expectation as wanting someone calling themselves a Doctor to have done more than watch a few episodes of Casualty!
Although it sounds like this particular individual fell short of most reasonable expectations.