The ‘routine’ EV charger assessment that wasn’t
A client asked us for a routine fire risk assessment. The paperwork came back fine. The chargers did not.
The short version
A commercial property client booked what they thought was a tick-box EV charger fire risk assessment. The assessment was largely fine, but the electrical inspection found the chargers had been so poorly installed that they had to be isolated on the spot. A few hundred pounds of ‘routine’ work became a proper remediation, and an estate that is now genuinely safe. The lesson: inspecting and actually looking are not the same thing.
Every so often a job reminds you why the words on the certificate matter less than the person holding the screwdriver. This was one of them.
A commercial property client came to us for a straightforward fire risk assessment on their EV charge points. The kind of thing that gets booked once a year, ticked off, and filed. Nothing about the request suggested drama. The chargers were a few years old, they were charging cars, and on paper everything was in order.
What the assessment said, and what the inspection found
The fire risk assessment itself came back largely fine. That is worth saying plainly, because it is exactly how these things lull you. The signage was there. The housekeeping around the units was reasonable. If we had stopped at the paperwork, everyone would have gone home happy.
The electrical inspection did not come back fine. When we actually opened things up and looked at how the chargers had been installed, the picture changed completely. The workmanship was poor enough that the safe thing, the only responsible thing, was to isolate the whole lot on the spot. Not schedule a follow-up. Isolate them, then and there.
What began as a few hundred pounds of routine work became a proper remediation, and an estate that is now genuinely safe rather than merely certified.
Why a general inspection misses this
None of this is a knock on fire risk assessors or general electricians. It is a point about specialism. EV charge points are not just another socket on the wall. They pull sustained high loads for hours, they sit outdoors in car parks and loading bays, and the way they are wired, earthed and protected has its own failure modes. A generalist doing their honest best will not always know what ‘wrong’ looks like on a charger, because it is not what they see every day.
We see it every day. That is the whole difference. When maintenance and compliance on EV charging is the entire business rather than a sideline, you develop an instinct for the specific ways these installs go bad, and you go looking for them instead of waiting for them to announce themselves.
The half-a-job problem
There is a second lesson here, and it is the one that costs estates the most. A report that flags a problem you then cannot fix just moves the risk around. The client in this story did not need a document telling them their chargers were dangerous. They needed the chargers made safe.
That is why we do both halves. We carry out the electrical inspection and fire risk assessment specific to EV charging, and then we put right what we find, with reporting you can hand straight to your insurer. One specialist owns the whole thing, so charge point compliance comes off your desk rather than sitting on it in the form of a problem you now have to solve.
What to actually do about it
If you own or manage a site with EV chargers, you do not need to take anyone’s word for whether they are safe. You need an honest look. That is what a Charge Point Audit is: a non-invasive survey that maps the estate and tells you the real condition, whether or not you do anything else with us. It is a small, low-risk first step, and on a maintenance contract it is deducted from the cost.
The estates that get caught out are almost never the ones that looked. They are the ones that assumed a clean certificate meant a safe car park. Those are not the same thing.
Key takeaways
- A clean fire risk assessment does not guarantee a safe EV charging installation, the electrical detail is where the risk usually hides.
- EV chargers have their own failure modes; a specialist goes looking for them, a generalist waits for them.
- An inspection that only flags problems moves the risk around, you need the assessment and the remediation together.
- A non-invasive Charge Point Audit gives you an honest picture before anything becomes an emergency.
Frequently asked
Is a fire risk assessment enough to keep EV chargers safe?
Not on its own. A fire risk assessment can pass while the electrical installation behind the chargers is unsafe. An EV-specific electrical inspection is what surfaces poor installation, and any faults found then need remediation, not just reporting.
What is the difference between an EV charger inspection and remediation?
The inspection identifies condition, risk and non-compliance. Remediation is the work that puts those faults right. A report without remediation leaves you holding the risk, which is why Safer Charging delivers both, with insurer-ready reporting.
Who should carry out an EV charge point fire risk assessment?
A specialist in EV charge point maintenance and compliance, rather than a general electrician or generalist assessor. EV chargers have specific loads, siting and protection requirements that a specialist checks as a matter of routine.
Written by Safer Charging
The UK specialists in EV charge point maintenance, technical surveys, fire risk and compliance.
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