Home EV charger not working: what to check

Start with the car and the schedule

Start outside the charger, because those checks cost nothing. Pod’s guide lists a flashing green light as charging delayed or not started: the vehicle not yet allowing the session to begin, a fully charged battery, a cable not seated properly or an earthing issue with a Renault Zoe. Check the car’s own charge limit and any schedule set in the car, and press the cable in until it clicks.

Then look at the schedule. New home chargers sold in Great Britain must default to charging hours outside the weekday peaks of 8am to 11am and 4pm to 10pm, with a randomised delay of up to 600 seconds that you can cancel, under the Smart Charge Points Regulations 2021. So a charger that waits at 5pm on a weekday is behaving as designed. Override it in the app.

Do not set schedules in several places. Ohme warns that both Octopus and Ohme may try to control charging at the same time, so choose one in the Octopus app. Hypervolt’s Bump Charge starts charging at once, overrides the schedule and is billed at your standard tariff rate. On Intelligent Octopus Go that can be the day rate.

Connection problems

An offline charger cannot take changes from the app, but the first question is what it keeps doing meanwhile.

Hypervolt adds a 5-minute window after each reboot in which you can reconnect through its hotspot page. If the page shows the charger connected but the app says offline, the Wi-Fi password may be wrong.

Breaker and RCD trips

A charger circuit must have an RCD of 30mA or less, and the charger needs protection against DC leakage, built in or fitted alongside, according to the IET. When it trips it is doing its job. Pod’s guidance for a flashing red light, which it describes as a fault caused by a safety measure, is to unplug the cable from the Solo and the car, reset the unit with the RCBO switch and try again once the light returns. Our advice: if the red light comes back, contact Pod or your installer.

Pod adds one specific cause. A recent smart meter installation may have disturbed the Energy Clamp that runs its Auto Power Balancing, which can trigger safety mode, and the clamp may be fitted to the RCBO or inside the distribution board. If a meter engineer has visited, tell your installer. Our advice, not a manufacturer rule: reset once, and if it trips again straight away, leave it off and call.

PEN fault and earth lock-outs

Most UK homes have PME earthing, where the earth is tied to the supply neutral. BS 7671 says such a supply must not feed an outdoor charger unless one of several protections applies, including a device or charger function that detects a failure of the combined earth-neutral (PEN) conductor. Most smart chargers include it, which is why an earth rod is usually unnecessary (see PEN fault protection and earthing). When it detects a fault it isolates the supply and must not reconnect onto the hazard. Ohme says its charger will not reconnect for five minutes after a PEN event.

myenergi describes a PEN fault as a fault on the electricity distribution system that supplies the property, not in the charger. Because the fault is upstream, our advice is to have an electrician check the supply earth and involve your network operator if they confirm a problem. Chargers without built-in protection need an earth rod instead, which adds cost: see our installation cost guide.

Cable and connector faults

Look for bent pins, dirt, melted plastic or a loose connector. Stop using a damaged cable. Buyers of marketplace Type 2 leads have reported a broken control conductor after about two and a half years and a plug that overheated, and we cover the choices in our Type 2 cable guide. On a tethered charger a cable fault means repairing the unit, while an untethered one just needs a new lead.

Who to call, and what is covered

Call your installer for a repeat RCD trip, an earth or PEN lock-out, a clamp reading that stays at zero or a load limit that is too low. Ohme itself tells owners to contact the original installer for load-limit and clamp problems. Call the maker for app, firmware and hardware faults inside the warranty. Call your tariff supplier if smart charging is not scheduling.

Octopus Charge’s warranty is valid only if an Octopus-trained engineer fitted it, and Pod says moving a charger with an uncertified electrician voids its warranty. Hypervolt sells five years for £100 extra. If your maker is in administration, the warranty may be worth little: see the EO Charging administration guide. In What Car?’s 2025 owner survey, a page sponsored by Pod, reported fault rates ranged from 13% for Ohme and Wallbox to 65% for Indra, so reliability differs by brand.