Can you just leave granny charger plugged in?

[Stevemr]

So I’ve bitten the bullet and bought a Kua ev6. Which I’m very excited about, and also a bit apprehensive about!
After listening to everyone on my previous thread about if it’s ok to just use a granny charger, I’m going to try that option at least to start with.
The wiring in the garage is new and spot on and I will have a dedicated Ev bs rated socket.
I’ve bought the master plug charger from screwfix.
The charger will be in the garage. The car will be charged outside.
Can I just leave the charger plugged in and switched on, then just plug the car in when I need to, or do I have to switch off the socket inside, when I’m not plugged into the car! It’s not very clear from the instructions.

[interstellar]

I would turn it off. It would probably be ok but I wouldn’t risk it.

[Russet Grange]

You might ike to occasionally unplug and plug back in to the wall socket. Just to give the contacts a bit of a 'reset' as it were. I believe others have posted that this is good practice.

[MrTrilby]

Ours has been plugged in and switched on for the last 3 years. Nobody has died yet.

[Simon_GH]

We used a granny charger for a year but a dedicated charger is electrically safer and 3x the speed for taking advantage of cheap EV charging times.

I’d switch off personally and unplug periodically. I used to inspect the socket occasionally too for signs of damage. It’s only takes a couple of minutes and is worth doing in my opinion.

[TheRainMaker]

It "should be fine" it won't supply power until it knows an EV is connected.

Edited by TheRainMaker on Saturday 25th April 17:36

[ATG]

MrTrilby said:

Ours has been plugged in and switched on for the last 3 years. Nobody has died yet.

Ditto.

It's fine to leave it plugged in, just like it's fine to leave a kettle or toaster plugged in.

Edited by ATG on Saturday 25th April 17:41

[ShortBeardy]

It probably depends somewhat on the arrangement of the outside bit of wire...
If it's publicly accessible I'd turn it off just in case some moron sticks a bit of metal in the end and tries to fry themselves, or the neighbours little jimmy manages it and then the parents sue. It's Darwinistic and you'd be doing future generations a favour but not everyone might see it that way.
If the end could get wet might be another reason. On the other hand if its on a private driveway and it sits coiled in a box and out of the weather then I don't think it matters.

[chrisman]

MrTrilby said:

Ours has been plugged in and switched on for the last 3 years. Nobody has died yet.

Same here, I can't remember that last time I unplugged it from the wall socket

[SWoll]

chrisman said:

MrTrilby said:

Ours has been plugged in and switched on for the last 3 years. Nobody has died yet.

Same here, I can't remember that last time I unplugged it from the wall socket

Ditto. As with any electrical device it's drawing bugger all when not in use. The only advice I would give is stick to 10 amps or less when actually charging.

[kambites]

As with many it seems, we left ours permanently plugged into the wall and switched on for the year or so before we got a 7kW charger installed and didn't have any issues.

[mikey_b]

If the car isn’t plugged in, there is no current draw to speak of. So nothing will get hot or ‘do’ anything. If you aren’t frantically pulling USB or laptop chargers out of sockets the moment you have finished charging your devices, you don’t have to worry about this either. The ‘guts’ inside the charger you bought won’t be all that different from a permanently installed one, and they are connected to the mains 24/7.

[craigjm]

Russet Grange said:

You might ike to occasionally unplug and plug back in to the wall socket. Just to give the contacts a bit of a 'reset' as it were. I believe others have posted that this is good practice.

How often have you done that with your toaster, kettle, tv, hifi etc etc? What exactly is “a bit of a reset”?

[ashenfie]

Most important element is keeping it clean and dry, don’t want it tripping the electrics over night.

[Stevemr]

Thanks for all the replies. Very helpful. I hadn’t really thought about the plug getting wet. It seems to have a pretty tight cover on it. But it makes sense to keep it dry. I will build a little house for it!

[Russet Grange]

craigjm said:

Russet Grange said:

You might ike to occasionally unplug and plug back in to the wall socket. Just to give the contacts a bit of a 'reset' as it were. I believe others have posted that this is good practice.

How often have you done that with your toaster, kettle, tv, hifi etc etc? What exactly is a bit of a reset ?

Never, but my toaster doesn't pull 13A for six hours. By "a bit of a reset" I mean allowing the contacts to reseat themselves occasionally instead of having exactly the same points of contact for months on end.

[TheDeuce]

Russet Grange said:

craigjm said:

Russet Grange said:

You might ike to occasionally unplug and plug back in to the wall socket. Just to give the contacts a bit of a 'reset' as it were. I believe others have posted that this is good practice.

How often have you done that with your toaster, kettle, tv, hifi etc etc? What exactly is a bit of a reset ?

Never, but my toaster doesn't pull 13A for six hours. By "a bit of a reset" I mean allowing the contacts to reseat themselves occasionally instead of having exactly the same points of contact for months on end.

I really don't think there's any benefit. Left untouched the already proven effective contact remains in tact. The only mild difference that unplugging and replugging can have is to add extra wear to the springs that pushed those contacts together in the first place, or possibly land on a poorer contact position when plugged back in.

Also it's not 13a, it's 10a. Any healthy socket and circuit should be well capable of that on a continuous basis.

The best advice is to torque up the copper contacts in the socket and across the circuit, theyre the points that relax after initial installation and can reduce capacity - and thus get warmer than ideal. That's the one thing that nobody ever does! A qualified spark fits the sockets, tests the circuit = all good. But after 12 months if you tug at the wires some terminations will be slightly loose because the copper relaxes. The best DIY approach anyone can take is to check and re-torque. Hardly anyone ever does...

[Cristio Nasser]

We ve had an Amazon special 7kW granny charger plugged in constantly for several years now. Nothing has happened.

This talk of resetting contacts or giving things a rest is simply hogwash. They just don’t work that way.

Edited by Cristio Nasser on Tuesday 28th April 06:24

[Hammy98]

I leave mines plugged in all the time switched on with that same masterplug socket from Screwfix.

I've replaced it once already over the 2 years. It is 'officially' EV rated but I think the heat of the pins when charging against the cold socket ends up cracking it. It didn't stop working as such, just wasn't comfortable running it like that once I noticed.

It still lasted over a year so I just replaced it like for like, still leave it switched on too...

[SWoll]

Russet Grange said:

Never, but my toaster doesn't pull 13A for six hours. By "a bit of a reset" I mean allowing the contacts to reseat themselves occasionally instead of having exactly the same points of contact for months on end.

Been granny charging for 7 years at this point, multiple houses, multiple EV's and just leave it plugged in and turned on. As mentioned earlier, keep it to 10 amps or below and I've not seen an issue, we run at 8 amps which results in around 1.9kW. Enough to add around 300+ miles a week for most EV's charging 7 hours per night. If you need more than that a dedicated 7kW charger or extended granny charging period is obviously the answer.