A home charger that's stopped working is usually one of a handful of things — power, a schedule you forgot about, connectivity, or the cable. Work through these roughly in order before assuming it's broken.
Tripped once
usually fine to reset, if there's an obvious one-off cause
Tripped repeatedly
stop resetting it — call an electrician
Charger won't power on at all
- Check your consumer unit (fuse box) for a tripped RCD or circuit breaker on the charger's circuit. If it tripped once under an identifiable cause — heavy rain, a specific car, a one-off — it's usually fine to reset.
- If it trips again straight away, or repeatedly, stop resetting it. An RCD that keeps tripping is doing its job — it's found a fault. Repeatedly resetting without finding the cause risks masking a genuine safety issue. Call a qualified electrician rather than continuing to reset it yourself.
- Check any isolator switch near the unit, if your installation has one.
- Rule out a wider power cut — check whether anything else in the house has also lost power.
Powered on, but charging won't start
- Check the charging schedule in the app. Smart chargers are often set to only charge during specific off-peak hours by default — if you're plugging in outside that window, it may simply be waiting, not faulty. Look for a manual override or "charge now" option.
- Check your wifi connection if it's a "smart"/app-connected charger. Many need an active internet connection to authorise a charging session — a dropped home wifi signal or router issue at the charger's location can stop it from starting even though the hardware is fine. Try restarting your router, and check the manufacturer's own status page for a known outage.
- Try starting a session from the physical button or RFID card/fob if you have one, to rule out an app-side issue specifically.
Cable, plug or connection issues
- Inspect the full length of the cable for cuts, cracks, or heat damage, particularly near the connectors at each end.
- Check the connector pins for corrosion or debris, and make sure it's seated fully and clicked into place at both the charger and the car.
- Try the same cable on a different charger (a public one, if convenient) to narrow down whether the fault is the cable or the home unit.
What error lights generally mean
Most chargers use light patterns or an app message to indicate a fault category. Exact codes and colours vary a lot between manufacturers, but the underlying categories are usually similar:
- Communication/control fault — often points to the cable or connector rather than the unit itself.
- Earth fault — a safety-related electrical fault. Don't attempt to work around this yourself; it needs a qualified electrician.
- Over/under-voltage — usually a supply issue rather than something wrong with the charger.
- Over-temperature — the unit has protected itself by pausing; let it cool and try again later.
When to call an electrician vs the manufacturer
- Call a qualified (ideally OZEV-approved) electrician for repeated RCD trips, any earth fault, scorch marks, water ingress, or anything that feels like an installation/wiring issue.
- Contact the charger manufacturer's support for app/connectivity problems, firmware issues, or a suspected fault in the unit's own control board.
This is general guidance, not a diagnosis of your specific charger — always check your unit's own manual or app for what its particular light pattern or error message means, and never bypass a safety device (like an RCD) yourself.