Why Your EV Charger Needs a Periodic Inspection

Most of the electrical points in your home or building are used in short bursts — a light, a kettle, a phone charger. An EV charger is different. It pulls 7.4 to 22 kW continuously, often for six to eight hours overnight, sometimes outdoors in the sun and rain. That is one of the hardest duty cycles of any circuit on the premises.

Equipment that works that hard is worth checking. A short periodic inspection keeps charging safe, keeps your warranty and insurance intact, and catches the small problems — a loosening terminal, a weakening RCD — long before they become a fault or a fire risk.

What a periodic inspection actually checks

It is a focused electrical health-check of the charger and its dedicated circuit — not a teardown. A Licensed Electrical Worker (LEW) and our technicians go through:

• ›Terminations re-torqued — the connections at the charger, isolator and board, which loosen over time under heat and high current. This is the single most common cause of EV-charger faults.
• ›RCD test — the residual-current device that protects you from shock is tripped and timed to confirm it still operates. The right type (Type A or Type B) is verified for your charger.
• ›Insulation resistance, polarity and earth-fault-loop tests on the circuit, plus an earthing/bonding check.
• ›Cable and isolator condition — heat discolouration, UV damage, water ingress and weatherproofing on outdoor runs.
• ›Charger self-test and firmware — the unit's own diagnostics, error log and any safety updates from the maker.

Residential (landed home): every 24 months

This is the part most homeowners miss: a home EV charger is not "install and forget". Under SS 722 and the LTA's EV charger rules, a charger in a restricted-access location — within or next to a landed home (detached, semi-detached, terrace, linked or strata cluster house) — must be periodically inspected by a certified Equipment Specialist (ES) once every 24 months.

On top of that legal minimum, a regular check protects things you have already paid for:

• ›Manufacturer warranties on chargers like Schneider, Autel and ABB frequently expect periodic servicing — skip it and a warranty claim can be refused.
• ›Home insurance can question a high-load circuit that was never re-checked after install.
• ›An RCD is a mechanical safety device — it can fail silently. The only way to know it still protects you is to test it.

Commercial, condo & public: every 6 and 12 months

Any charger that is not inside a private landed home counts as "non-restricted access" — condominium chargers, carparks, malls, offices, fleet depots and any publicly accessible charger. These are inspected far more often than home chargers, because they run harder and serve more people:

• ›Every 6 months — maintenance and inspection by a certified Equipment Specialist (ES).
• ›Every 12 months — inspection by a Licensed Electrical Worker (LEW).
• ›On top of that, where the installation's approved load exceeds about 45 kVA it must also hold an EMA Electrical Installation Licence under an appointed LEW, whose periodic inspection keeps the licence valid.

Why it is worth it

The failure modes of a hard-worked charging circuit are exactly the ones a periodic check is designed to catch — a loose terminal heating up behind the faceplate, an RCD that no longer trips, a cable degrading in the weather. Left alone these mean, at best, a charger that quietly stops working, and at worst, a real safety risk.

A short, scheduled inspection turns that uncertainty into a known, documented, safe installation — and keeps the warranty and insurance you have already paid for actually valid.