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The charger looks great.
Fresh cable. Clean conduit. A tidy wall-mounted unit beside the parking bay. The owner plugs in, the lights come on and another Sydney apartment building has taken a small step towards electric transport.
Yet there’s a less glamorous question worth asking.
For Sydney buildings protected by passive fire, the important part of an EV charger installation may not be the charger itself. It may be the route the new electrical services took through walls, floors, risers and plant areas before reaching it.
That’s where passive fire collars and other tested penetration systems can become relevant. The electrical installation can work perfectly while an opening created along the cable route still needs proper passive-fire treatment.
The charger is visible.
The fire barrier behind it often isn’t.
The Cable Has to Come From Somewhere
An EV charger isn’t a cordless appliance.
Power needs to travel from the building’s electrical infrastructure to the parking bay. In a detached house, that route may be fairly simple. In a multi-storey apartment building, office or commercial car park, it can be much more involved.
Cables may run through switch rooms, corridors, risers, walls, slabs and basement zones before reaching the charger.
Every time a new service crosses a building element, the installer has to consider what that element actually does.
Is it simply a partition?
Or is it part of a fire-resisting wall, floor or shaft?
That difference matters.
The National Construction Code specifically addresses electrical and other services that penetrate building elements required to resist fire. Where a cable or other service passes through such an element, the opening needs to be protected in a way that maintains the required fire performance.
So the cable route is not just an electrical route.
It may also become a passive-fire route.
A Perfect Electrical Job Can Still Leave an Imperfect Fire Barrier
This is where trades can unintentionally work at cross-purposes.
The electrician’s job is to get power safely to the charger. They may install compliant cabling, protection devices, isolation equipment and neat containment.
From an electrical point of view, the work looks excellent.
Then someone notices the cable passed through a fire-rated wall.
Now another question appears.
Was the penetration protected correctly?
The NCC makes this distinction clear. Where electrical, electronic, plumbing, mechanical or other services pass through fire-resisting building elements, the penetration has to comply with recognised protection methods, including suitable tested systems or other permitted solutions.
That might require sealants, wraps, collars, pillows, boards or another tested passive-fire system, depending on the service and construction.
The key point is simple.
A hole doesn’t stop being a hole because there’s a beautifully installed cable running through it.
Why Does Such a Small Opening Matter?
A cable penetration can look tiny compared with the wall around it.
That makes the concern seem almost fussy.
Surely a twenty or thirty millimetre opening can’t matter next to several metres of concrete or fire-rated plasterboard?
That’s the trap.
Fire compartmentation works because the complete barrier is intended to resist the passage of fire and, depending on the system, heat and smoke for a specified period.
An untreated opening creates another route.
Think of a raincoat with one neat little hole in the shoulder. Ninety-nine per cent of the coat still works. Unfortunately, the rain only needs the missing one per cent.
A fire-resisting barrier has a more serious job, of course, but the principle is familiar.
The surrounding wall can perform exactly as intended while the opening becomes the weak point.
What About Fire Collars?
Fire collars are commonly associated with certain combustible pipe penetrations rather than ordinary electrical cables.
During EV charger works, however, installers may encounter or disturb existing penetrations, conduits or nearby services as they create a new cable route. That broader area can include passive-fire products already protecting plumbing or other building services.
This is where things become a bit messy.
A contractor might need to enlarge an opening. A cable tray could be routed beside an existing penetration. A wall lining may be opened near a previously protected pipe.
Suddenly, an existing collar, seal or tested arrangement may no longer match what was originally installed.
The safe approach is not to assume that anything surrounding the new cable remains unaffected.
Inspect the whole penetration area.
One new service can change an old passive-fire detail.
Strata Car Parks Make the Issue More Interesting
EV charging is growing quickly in apartment buildings, and strata car parks create their own set of practical challenges.
The electrical supply often sits some distance from the parking bay. That means new cable routes may pass through common-property areas, electrical rooms, risers and walls separating different sections of the basement.
NSW guidance also treats EV charging infrastructure in strata as a change to common-property electrical services or infrastructure. The state’s EV-ready strata guidance notes that these upgrades fall within the sustainability infrastructure framework under NSW strata legislation.
So this usually isn’t just “an owner installing a charger beside their car”.
It can become a building infrastructure project.
That means approvals, electrical capacity, cable routes, common property and fire-safety interfaces all need consideration.
A charger may belong to one parking space.
The cable feeding it may travel through half the building.
The Fire Risk Conversation Is Bigger Than the Penetration
It’s worth separating two related issues.
One is passive fire protection.
The other is the wider fire-safety design around EV charging.
Fire and Rescue NSW currently treats EVs and EV charging equipment as a special hazard in relevant Class 2 to 9 building applications and endorses the AFAC Fire Safety for Carparks guideline for practitioners dealing with EV parking and charging. FRNSW describes EV-related incidents as presently low frequency but potentially high consequence.
That doesn’t mean EV charging is inherently unsafe.
It means the building’s fire-safety arrangements should reflect the actual installation and risk.
Detection, suppression, brigade access, charging layout and other controls may all form part of the broader discussion.
Passive fire adds another layer.
Where the new electrical infrastructure passes through fire-resisting construction, the barrier still needs to do its job.
The charger can be safe.
The penetration can still be wrong.
Those are separate questions.
The Cable Riser Is Where Things Can Get Crowded
Service risers are natural routes for EV infrastructure.
They already carry electrical cables, communications services and other building systems between floors or zones.
That makes them convenient.
It also means they can become crowded.
A new cable bundle is added. Then another owner wants a charger. Later, the building installs more infrastructure so several parking bays can connect.
The original firestopping around the riser opening may be cut, enlarged or disturbed repeatedly.
Nobody sets out to damage the fire barrier.
Each contractor simply needs a little more room.
After several years, “a little more room” can become a fairly large opening around a dense cable bundle.
The NCC’s service-penetration rules exist precisely because fire-resisting floors, ceilings and walls can lose performance where service openings aren’t adequately protected.
This is why adding cables shouldn’t become a game of pushing one more through the existing hole.
The Basement Wall Might Be Doing More Than Dividing Parking Bays
Basement car parks contain walls for all sorts of reasons.
Some define plant rooms. Others surround stairways, electrical spaces or fire-isolated areas. Certain walls and floors form part of the building’s required fire separation.
From the installer’s perspective, a wall can look like the shortest path between switchboard and charger.
From the fire-safety perspective, it may be a protected barrier.
Those two viewpoints need to meet before the drill does.
The NCC also limits which services can penetrate fire-isolated exits, specifically to preserve the integrity of those protected escape areas.
So cable routing should never be improvised solely around convenience.
The shortest route isn’t always the correct route.
Then There’s the Concrete Slab
Sometimes cables need to pass vertically between levels.
That introduces floor penetrations.
The NCC requires services passing through floors that need a fire-resistance level to be suitably protected so the penetration does not reduce the fire performance of the element.
Again, the electrical task may appear modest.
Drill. Route. Connect.
The passive-fire consequence can be larger.
A slab is part of the building’s separation between storeys. Any new opening through it needs to be considered within that context.
Core drilling without checking what the floor does is a risky shortcut.
Before creating the opening, someone should know whether the slab is fire rated and what penetration system will be required afterwards.
That information is much easier to establish before the drill starts spinning.
Photographs Before Concealment Are Worth Their Weight in Gold
Passive fire has a visibility problem.
Once walls are closed and ceilings are reinstated, good work disappears.
Bad work disappears too.
Before concealing new EV cabling, photographs can document the service route and passive-fire treatment at each relevant penetration.
The records should make sense to someone who wasn’t on site.
A close-up photograph of red sealant with no location reference isn’t especially helpful two years later.
Identify the penetration.
Record where it is.
Keep relevant product and installation information.
If the building uses a penetration register, update it.
Future technicians shouldn’t have to reverse-engineer the charger installation from a cable disappearing through a wall.
What If the Charger Was Added Years Ago?
Existing EV installations deserve attention too.
Perhaps the charger was installed before the current strata manager took over. Nobody can find the project file. The electrician’s invoice says “supply and install EV charger”, but nothing mentions passive fire.
That doesn’t automatically mean something is wrong.
It does mean the cable route may be worth reviewing if it crosses fire-resisting construction.
Follow the cable where practical.
Check service risers, switch rooms and wall or floor penetrations.
Compare what is installed with available drawings and passive-fire registers.
If a penetration looks incomplete, unlabelled or altered, have it assessed by someone competent in passive fire protection.
Don’t guess from appearance.
Neat work can be non-compliant.
Messy-looking work can sometimes be part of a legitimate tested system.
Evidence beats aesthetics.
The Inspection Should Follow the Cable, Not Just the Charger
After an EV charging installation, the final review shouldn’t stop at the parking bay.
The charger can be energised and operating perfectly while the cable route contains unresolved passive-fire issues.
Follow the work.
Where did the supply originate?
Which walls did it cross?
Did it pass through any floors or risers?
Were existing passive systems disturbed?
Were new penetrations sealed using suitable tested systems?
Were they labelled and recorded?
That broader inspection catches what a functional charger test cannot.
Electricity reaching the car proves the electrical pathway works.
It doesn’t prove the walls around that pathway still perform as intended during a fire.
The Wall Behind the Charger Deserves Some Attention Too
EV chargers are highly visible signs that buildings are changing.
Passive fire protection is almost the opposite.
It works quietly inside walls, slabs, shafts and hidden service spaces. Most occupants will never see it, which is exactly why alterations can slip through unnoticed.
When new EV infrastructure enters a Sydney building, follow the cable.
Look beyond the glossy charger and the green status light.
Check what the installation passed through and what had to be disturbed along the way.
Protect the penetrations correctly. Keep the records. Inspect the work before it disappears behind finishes.
Because the newest piece of technology in the car park can still depend on one of the oldest fire-safety ideas in construction:
If you put a hole in a fire barrier, make sure the barrier still works.
