Simpson & Partners Home 7 vs Andersen Quartz

£23 apart — but one gets the grant

The Simpson & Partners Home 7 costs £649. The Andersen Quartz costs £672. A £23 gap is, on paper, barely a decision. In practice, a grant ruling and a warranty clause push these two chargers further apart than the price suggests.

• Simpson & Partners Home 7 — UK-made aluminium, ten-year enclosure warranty, OZEV-approved, 22kW three-phase option included.
• Andersen Quartz — Andersen's entry-level design piece, IP65, eleven finishes, seven-year warranty, OZEV approval not confirmed.

The grant changes the arithmetic

The Simpson & Partners Home 7 is OZEV-approved. If you're an eligible renter or flat owner, the £500 grant drops its effective cost to £149 before installation. The Andersen Quartz is not currently confirmed on the OZEV-approved list. That turns a £23 gap into a £523 gap for grant-eligible buyers — and at that point, the comparison is over.

If you are not grant-eligible — a homeowner in a house, say — the £23 difference is negligible, and the decision rests on other things. But for anyone who qualifies, the Simpson & Partners is the only rational option here.

Warranty: read the small print on both

Simpson & Partners leads with a headline figure no other UK charger matches: ten years on the enclosure. That anodised aluminium shell is warranted for a decade. The electronics inside, however, carry a separate three-year warranty. The Andersen Quartz offers seven years on the full unit — no split.

Which structure is better depends on what you think will fail first. Enclosures rarely give trouble; circuit boards and relays do. Seven years of full-unit cover from Andersen arguably protects the components more likely to need it. But three years on electronics is still standard across much of the market — the Tesla Wall Connector and Ohme Home Pro sit in the same band. Simpson & Partners is not unusually short; Andersen is unusually long.

Finish and weatherproofing

Both chargers sell partly on looks — unusual in a market dominated by white plastic boxes. The Andersen Quartz offers eleven standard finishes plus optional Accoya wood and carbon inserts. The Simpson & Partners Home 7 counters with anodised aluminium in several premium finishes, including Accoya and a Cotswolds Green that suits period properties. Neither is the Andersen A3 — that remains the design benchmark at £900 — but both are a clear step above the field.

On weather resistance, the Quartz takes it. IP65 versus IP54 means the Andersen is rated for direct water jets, not just splashes. If the charger sits on an exposed wall with no overhead cover, IP65 is a practical advantage. On a sheltered wall or inside a garage, the difference is academic.

The Quartz is also slightly more compact — 286 × 172 mm versus 350 × 200 mm — and lighter at 3.4 kg minimum. Neither is large by any standard, but the Andersen fits tighter spots.

Smart tariff support

Neither charger is a tariff optimiser in the way an Ohme Home Pro is. Both support Intelligent Octopus Go, which hands scheduling to Octopus's servers. The Andersen Quartz also integrates with OVO Charge Anytime. The Simpson & Partners Home 7 works with Octopus Go and EDF GoElectric via timer-based scheduling.

For half-hourly tariffs like Octopus Agile, neither charger tracks slot-by-slot pricing automatically. If Agile is your tariff, the conversation moves to the Ohme Home Pro vs Simpson & Partners Home 7 comparison instead.

On fixed off-peak tariffs — Go, EDF GoElectric, British Gas EV Power — both chargers handle the job. Set a schedule; walk away.

Three-phase: a quiet Simpson & Partners advantage

The Simpson & Partners Home 7 offers a 22kW three-phase variant within the product line. The Andersen Quartz charges £195 on top of its £672 base for three-phase — bringing it to £867. For the small minority of UK homes wired for three-phase, the Simpson & Partners is the cheaper route to 22kW by a wide margin.

Which to buy

Buy the Simpson & Partners Home 7 if:

• You qualify for the OZEV grant — the Quartz cannot guarantee it
• You want the longest enclosure warranty on the UK market (ten years)
• You have or plan three-phase supply and want 22kW without a surcharge

Buy the Andersen Quartz if:

• You are not grant-eligible and want Andersen's finish range and brand
• The charger sits on an exposed wall and IP65 matters
• You use OVO Charge Anytime and want native integration

For most buyers, the Simpson & Partners Home 7 is the stronger proposition. It costs £23 less, qualifies for the grant, carries a longer enclosure warranty, and includes three-phase without surcharges. The Andersen Quartz is a handsome charger with a fine warranty — but it is paying for a badge and a weather rating that many installations will not need. Unless the finish catalogue or IP65 rating is specifically what drew you here, the Simpson & Partners is the one to fit.