Electric car charger - upgrade to 220

Thanks, again!

workisfun

in General Discussion 1 year and 8 months ago

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workisfun | 1 year and 9 months ago

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We just have 110 running through the house and to the garage. If we were to buy an electric car, and want to install a 220 charger, what does that entail? Is it a whole new subpanel? Can it run on the outside of the house? Any other thoughts are appreciated.

workisfun | 1 year and 9 months ago

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It would be approximately a 150ft run from panel along the exterior of the semidetached home, across the yard along the fence line, and into the garage.

justinromeu26 | 1 year and 9 months ago

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what is the amp rating on the charger or what size circuit breaker will that require?

You would be better running a sub panel to the garage. to do this, you will need two empty breaker spaces for a double pole breaker in your existing service panel (you will gain one back as you remove the old 110v for the garage and put that breaker in the sub).

if you use a sub, you will run no 4 wire for the 60 amp (technically no 4, but you have a long run and will have voltage drop so an electrician will more likely say no 2 wire). This will require 4 wires – one for each hot leg of the 220 (2 wires), one for the neutral, and one ground (the neutral bus in the sub panel cannot be used for a ground wire so it will require its own ground wire). Better still, a ground rod or two in the garage.

in the sub panel you will put another double pole breaker for the 220v charger. what amperage depends. if it calls for a 30 amp breaker, you will need 10 awg wire (one for each hot) with a ground and an outlet 4′ off the ground. the instructions for the charger will s tate the amperage and what NEMA plug to use (30 amp is no 10 wire, 40 amp/no 8). additionally, you can now put a single pole breaker in for the 110 volts for the rest of the garage.

they can run it on the side of the house and underground in pvc conduit made to withstand exposure.

if you would rather not run a sub panel, i can explain this the other way.

I am not an electrician and anything i am suggesting here is being done so in an informal manner for the purposes of discussion. i could be wrong. when people are wrong with electric, houses burn down. Do not attempt to do anything like this based on anything i said herein.

Steve
brownstonehomeinspection.com

justinromeu26 | 1 year and 9 months ago

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the smiley face above was supposed to be “8”. i would not know how to make one of those smiley faces and do not know how that happen.

workisfun | 1 year and 9 months ago

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Thanks, Inspector! I would definitely not do this myself, but the specifics really help me envision it and prepare me well to hear from professionals who bid. Don’t sweat the typo – happens to all of us with big fingers and bad eyes.

dorkofwindsor | 1 year and 8 months ago

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you should not do this yourself of course. as steve said in your house we already have 220-240v coming in to your panel. houses split that in the panel so we have a bunch of 120’s to use, but we can also pull 240v *if there is enough amperage from the service line from the street*. this is why you need an electrician to check these things, as some houses still have the old 90-100 amp service line and that may need to be upgraded. homeowners cannot contact coned for this, only an electrician. If you have 200 amps coming from the street its probably fine.

so they will take 240 from the panel and breakout a separate breaker box, and run the cable steve talked about from there.

its the same thing they do for, say a rooftop package AC, so its not an esoteric job, fairly routine.

justinromeu26 | 1 year and 8 months ago

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to dork’s point, it has been written about on here that people are upgrading to 200 amps or 400 amps (legally) and putting requests in to con ed to increase the wire size from the street and they are not doing it. i THINK i read that a wire size is ok so long as the total usage (not total potential usage but what is reasonable that people will use at any one time) will not rise above 80% of the rated capacity of the wire (an electrician told me that when they are figuring potential load in a house, it is up to them to figure this and it can be different in different situations). I have an arc welder in this house and i sometimes hook it up and use it and it chews power. that is ok for me to do when i do something like that and MIGHT turn off the ac units (i don’t). But it is very different in a home where people could potentially turn on several ac units, and an electric stove, electric dryer, and now a 220 volt charger which is probably 30 amps or more (i just googled it and a cursory look said they draw 40 amps on a 50 amp circuit). 4 awg wire is not goi ng to cut it anymore and that is what people probably have if they went from a 100 to 200 amp panel and are still using the old wire. that is why this is a job for electricians – at least if something goes wrong it is their problem and con ed’s.

What i am saying here is stuff off the top of my head and i am not an electrician and this should not be relied upon in any way.

Steve

justinromeu26 | 1 year and 8 months ago

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I just got off the phone with the electrician. He said that no 4 wire should be fine for 200 amp panels in residential even though the code calls for more. he stated that the reason the code got developed and set where it is was because of insurance companies but con ed works off something else and no they are not going to upgrade wire until it burns out (i don’t know if this is true or he is being realistically cynical).

in so far as what to figure for houses. he does not do residential work so he admitted he is a bit rusty on the calculation but it goes something like this: 3 watts per square foot of house PLUS the laundry PLUS the kitchen PLUS the AC and now, he said these car chargers are a new thing so we assume PLUS the car charger.

1000 watts at 120 volts = 9 amps/at 220 volts = 4.5 amps.

justinromeu26 | 1 year and 8 months ago

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“Code calls for more”: i mean heavier wire.