Best Home Charger for the Renault 5 E-Tech Electric

The Renault 5 has pulled in a lot of people who were not previously EV-minded, often as a second car or a commuter. For that kind of use, home charging turns fuel costs into something close to background noise.

You will likely find you plug in twice a week rather than nightly.

Yes. The E-Tech Electric is battery electric with a Type 2 AC inlet, so it charges from any standard UK home charge point.

Every plug-in car sold in the UK uses a Type 2 socket for AC charging, so any standard home charge point will physically connect. The decision is about features, tariff and where the unit goes — not compatibility.

A 7kW smart charge point — and on a compact car like this, that is genuinely generous. Nothing about a small hatchback benefits from a larger installation.

A 7kW (often quoted as 7.4kW) single-phase smart charger is the standard domestic unit in the UK. Anything more powerful needs a three-phase supply, which almost no Birmingham house has, and which this car would not benefit from on a driveway overnight.

If you want the longer version, we have written one on 7kW versus 22kW chargers.

Yes. For many straightforward home installations, BG SyncEV is the charger our electrician tends to recommend: sensibly built, tethered or untethered, and easy to live with day to day.

For a second car on a modest budget, there is no sense over-specifying. A SyncEV unit on a clean dedicated circuit is exactly the right level of kit.

More detail on the unit itself is on our BG SyncEV page.

Also yes. If smart tariff integration is particularly important to you, we can install Ohme instead and advise which option better suits your car and household.

If this is your household's first EV and you are about to switch tariff, Ohme makes the cheap-overnight-window habit automatic rather than something you remember to do.

There is more on it on our Ohme charger page.

A smaller battery means shorter charges. On 7kW, a typical evening top-up after commuting is a short affair, and a fuller charge fits comfortably inside a cheap overnight window.

In practice, the time a home charge takes depends on:

• the battery percentage you start from — most people top up rather than charge from empty
• which version of the car you have, as battery sizes differ across the range
• the maximum AC charge rate the car's onboard charger will accept
• the output of the charge point, normally 7kW on a domestic installation
• any load management in the house, which can briefly reduce the rate when other heavy appliances are running

The useful question is not "how many hours" but "is it full by morning" — and on a 7kW charger, for normal daily mileage, the answer is almost always yes.

Almost certainly not. A standard single-phase domestic supply is what nearly every UK home has, and it is what a 7kW charger is designed around. No upgrade, no new meter, no digging up the drive.

What we do check on the survey is straightforward:

• the condition and spare capacity of your consumer unit
• the earthing arrangement, and whether PEN fault protection is handled by the charger or separately
• the main fuse rating and whether load management is worth enabling
• the cable route from the board to where you want the unit

If something does need attention, you hear it at quoting stage with a price attached — not on the morning of the install.

Yes, and it is the sensible order of events. Most people ring us the week the car is delivered and then spend a fortnight on a three-pin lead. Book the survey while you are waiting on delivery and the charger is on the wall, tested and ready before the keys land.

You do not need the car present for the installation. We commission and test the charge point without it, and show you the app when you collect the vehicle.

• A dedicated circuit from your consumer unit to the charge point
• Protection and earthing to current wiring regulations
• A cable route agreed with you before any drilling happens
• Testing, certification and a walk-through of the app
• Notification to the network operator where it is required

A typical single-phase domestic installation takes around half a day. Older boards, long runs or awkward routes add time, and we say so up front.

For what genuinely changes the price, see what affects EV charger installation costs.

Appleby Electrical is based in B36 and fits home charge points across east Birmingham, north Solihull and the villages beyond: Shard End, Castle Bromwich, Chelmsley Wood, Marston Green, Kitts Green, Garretts Green, Stechford, Hodge Hill, Sheldon, Yardley, Water Orton, Coleshill.

Being local matters more than people expect. A quick survey, a real person on the phone, and someone who will actually come back if the unit ever needs looking at.