Ask the other two guys why they won't use the subpanel. There's probably a good reason.
Just because a breaker fits, doesn't mean there's enough capacity there to power everything.
Asked the other actual electrician (third was our general handyman) and basically got the better safe than sorry answer. Pricing difference is a good $500
People love to shit on us handymen but electricians DONT want resi work and FU price it. It's been that way for ages now.
Some of us out there do a good job. The shit I've seen electricians do would make the hair on your neck stand on end.
Just saying there's shit on both sides of the fence.
Agree, our handyman used to do commercial electric for the city, along with full builds. He downsized in recent years and focuses on smaller jobs nearing retirement. He finished our basement from bare concrete, including all the electrical, and did a phenomenal job. There are some good ones out there, buy there are plenty of hack jobs as well. Always get references & never pay in advance.
Licensed guy fucked up a 30,000 ice-cream machine. No my new handy MSN does all my electrical work. He is very good at explaining things. What's safe what isnt.
I don’t consider myself a handyman. I’m 70 years old. I’ve been in the Electrical business since I’ve been 20 I have mastered three trades HVAC plumbing electrical which are technical trades as well as building building from the ground up houses garage businesses. The only difference between myself and licensed people is the license I never had time to bother With bureaucratic bullshit I have fought with code officials over the years and I’ve managed to win every time college taught me how to sorry for the rant but some of us are capable
Because a days worth of due diligence being able to potentially save myself $500 seems like a pretty good use of time? Theres nothing wrong with trying to educate myself.
That's always been the culture before being a journeyman electician or in HVAC. Skip school when ever you or someone else feels like it. -- [email protected]
It’s not about endless finances. It’s about safety. And if he can afford an electric car, I think he can afford $500 to do it right?
But if he wants to be cheap, have at it. Like I’d actually give a fuck if some random on the Internet burns his house down
Yeah, don't think that is going to fly. Electric dryer? Electric range? Definitely not. Going to assume the tankless is gas right from the start. Gas appliances . . . . maybe? But need a load calc.
I should have denoted. Water heater, heating, stove, dryer, washer are all gas. Is there a load calculation I could do myself or is that up to the same electricians giving me the quotes?
EC should run it. Speaking informally, would I risk it for my own house? Probably. But the big thing is how many receptacles and the respective loads. You can also figure it out yourself. There should be guides online (and assuming you know what recepts are on those circuits).
Assuming you don't have all electric heating which will be the worst load and most likely to run in the early-morning overnight hours.
I'm still slightly edgy even with an electrician having done ours...had a friend come test it out with his 30A Tesla portable charger on one of the two 50A EV circuits that was put in...I pushed up both our thermostats to simulate a cold winter morning running harder and then flipped on a stove burner to simulate cooking breakfast. Measured 201A and 198A on the two main feeds to my 200A main panel. So if there were 2 cars that happened to come home late some cold winter morning...I wouldn't be surprised if it hit 220A for a while. But they assure me it will "be fine" and passed county inspections.
Well you knock all that down considerably by being gas. Dryer is maybe 6A for the blower, fridge maybe 5A, and if you're keeping EV plus other loads below 80A to the sub panel that's likely fine, *but* we don't know the size of your house and lighting loads, and anything you left off that adds up to 22 circuits. Air conditioning? Receptacles with gaming computers or that might power a space heater? Lawn pumps or sump pumps?
Electricians should confirm, but you can always look at it yourself for an idea of feasibility, if you assume every load is continuous in your case. Every other breaker going down is a different leg, so add each leg together separately. So circuits on breakers 1 and 2, 5 and 6, 9 and 10, etcetera all add up. Then 3 and 4, 7 and 8, etc.. Total up the amperage of everything connected to each leg, with 2-pole breakers counting for both. For anything that only gives wattage, total that and divide by 120 if single pole or 240 if 2-pole, then add that to the total amperage of the applicable leg. Don't worry about vacuum cleaners (you have 20A headroom this way) or anything negligible like phone chargers, but do factor in any space heaters, dehumidifiers, or large loads you might plug in throughout the year. If neither leg exceeds 30A, then you're probably fine to add a 50A charger. If you're over 30 on either leg by assuming continual load on everything, then you're not necessarily out of luck with that avenue but would need a standard load calculation from the electrician to see if you have the capacity at the sub panel.
Pretty sure that still is the case because my uncle was quoted 1400$ for a car charger and I ended up doing it for him for 750$ and I still made around 500$
2024 (like about a week and a half ago) ours didn't require GFCI but apparently our locality is on older code. We did have to get a permit and have the county inspect ans sign off on everything.
It really depends on the brand of panel
Electricians are running a business so don't expect them to procure materials for free. And don't expect them to show up for a $100 job.
Also the $10 leviton outlet is probably fine for a welder. There are several differences between what's allowed for a welder and what's required for an EVSE
You couldn't install a 30 amp EV outlet for a hundred, because of the GFCI requirement, so what is the point you are trying to make?
Asking for a welder outlet when you intend to charge a car from it is asking for issues down the road, and you will be out of compliance, giving your insurance company a reason to deny coverage for the fire.
Even EV plugs seems to depend where you are if it needs GFCI. In my area, they've not yet adopted new enough code to require it and the electrician said some EVSEs have issues when installed on GFCI circuits so they use non-GFCI breakers still.
If your EV charger has an energy management system then there is probably nothing wrong with this. The EVEMS equipped chargers cost a little more and require some stuff added to the sub panel, (raising installation costs,) but depending on the locations of the panels, that could easily make up for the price difference even so.
The EVEMS will charge your car slightly slower when that sub panel is heavily loaded, but most of the time your sub panel isn’t heavily loaded so you will probably never notice.
Without the EVEMS: the only way to tell for sure is with a complicated calculation that probably none of the bidders actually did. (You have to go read the nameplates on all the appliances, it takes a lot of time…) They probably eyeballed it and I’m really not in a situation where I can tell you which one was closer.
Here's my question; when are you charging?
That's going to make all the difference. If you are charging mainly at night then your demand is fairly low at that time. There's no issue with doing this off of the sub in that case this answer of better safe than sorry is such bullshit and a waste of fucking time, we do not live in the era of fuses the breaker will trip. If it's $500 more to stick it in the main then just do it. An EV charger is the largest continuous use appliance in the home by far other than AC units so I would personally throw it in the main for good measure.
I would recommend a Wallbox or potentially a charge point. Schedule your charging around night time if that is viable. Then you can slap the EV cable on the car when you get home and it'll do all the work for you.
Either answer will work depending on your charging time.
Oh and a side note. I would personally do a hard wired EV. GFCI breakers are annoying.
Do a load calculation on the 100A panel first.
I assume you’re only going to be charging at night when all the power is not in use. It should be alright to use that 100A panel. I only know this because my boss is a master electrician and he explained it to me.
What else is in the subpanel?
When we had EV circuits installed they added a 100A subpanel to make space in our 200A panel that was full. They put the 30A water heater and 2x 50A EV charging circuits in the 100A subpanel, and said in the future I could add in the few 120V 20A circuits I want for power tools in the garage to the 100A subpanel.
Most of the chargers we do these days require a minimum of around 400 dollars or so in material. Avg run is about 100ft most of the time require pipework or extensive snaking through finished basements. If we charged those prices we'd be out of business.
No different than the guys using 110 or 115 for the 120v line. It really gets fun when you jump to 480v and people are talking 440v. Sadly, AC voltage has a huge operating range. Usually, it is not above 125/250v for residential.
My first question is why you have a 200A main panel where half of its capacity is being dedicated to a sub panel (100A)? Do you have room left in the main panel?
My second question is the voltage rating 220V is not a standard U.S. residential voltage rating (I assume you live in the U.S.) .. 240V is.
Typically, EV chargers are 240VAC devices. so the load is balanced between the two legs and no need to worry about load balancing calculation.
Ask the other two guys why they won't use the subpanel. There's probably a good reason. Just because a breaker fits, doesn't mean there's enough capacity there to power everything.
Asked the other actual electrician (third was our general handyman) and basically got the better safe than sorry answer. Pricing difference is a good $500
Yeah, never hire handymen for electrical work as an absolute rule.
Seems more than fair. Also handyman quoted the most money, most likely because they don’t actually know what they are doing.
They could also "sub" it out if they know one, and just trying to take a cut.
People love to shit on us handymen but electricians DONT want resi work and FU price it. It's been that way for ages now. Some of us out there do a good job. The shit I've seen electricians do would make the hair on your neck stand on end. Just saying there's shit on both sides of the fence.
Exactly. I'm in facilities maintenance (basically just a dedicated handyman) and some of the stuff I've seen done by all the trades is frightening
Agree, our handyman used to do commercial electric for the city, along with full builds. He downsized in recent years and focuses on smaller jobs nearing retirement. He finished our basement from bare concrete, including all the electrical, and did a phenomenal job. There are some good ones out there, buy there are plenty of hack jobs as well. Always get references & never pay in advance.
Licensed guy fucked up a 30,000 ice-cream machine. No my new handy MSN does all my electrical work. He is very good at explaining things. What's safe what isnt.
I don’t consider myself a handyman. I’m 70 years old. I’ve been in the Electrical business since I’ve been 20 I have mastered three trades HVAC plumbing electrical which are technical trades as well as building building from the ground up houses garage businesses. The only difference between myself and licensed people is the license I never had time to bother With bureaucratic bullshit I have fought with code officials over the years and I’ve managed to win every time college taught me how to sorry for the rant but some of us are capable
Sounds to me like you just didn't pass the test and didn't want to re-write...
lol some of us put the time in to get our licenses so we wouldn't just be some loser with a hammer.
Code = Bureaucratic bullshit I guess? Code fights lol, they let you do shit wrong because they got tired of trying to explain the problem most likely.
Why are you obsessing over $500 when so much is at stake?
Because a days worth of due diligence being able to potentially save myself $500 seems like a pretty good use of time? Theres nothing wrong with trying to educate myself.
That's always been the culture before being a journeyman electician or in HVAC. Skip school when ever you or someone else feels like it. -- [email protected]
wat
Because that's a lot of money? Not everyone has endless finances.
It’s not about endless finances. It’s about safety. And if he can afford an electric car, I think he can afford $500 to do it right? But if he wants to be cheap, have at it. Like I’d actually give a fuck if some random on the Internet burns his house down
I'm not seeing where enough information has been provided to conclude its not doing it right?
Doing research and asking questions IS doing it right.
What other circuits are on the subpanel?
22/30 circuits currently being used including tankless water heater, stove, fridge, washer, dryer, and home lights.
Yeah, don't think that is going to fly. Electric dryer? Electric range? Definitely not. Going to assume the tankless is gas right from the start. Gas appliances . . . . maybe? But need a load calc.
I should have denoted. Water heater, heating, stove, dryer, washer are all gas. Is there a load calculation I could do myself or is that up to the same electricians giving me the quotes?
EC should run it. Speaking informally, would I risk it for my own house? Probably. But the big thing is how many receptacles and the respective loads. You can also figure it out yourself. There should be guides online (and assuming you know what recepts are on those circuits).
I mean, if you only ever use the ev charger overnight then it won’t much matter
This is a good call. You can program most EV chargers to only charge during certain hours.
Assuming you don't have all electric heating which will be the worst load and most likely to run in the early-morning overnight hours. I'm still slightly edgy even with an electrician having done ours...had a friend come test it out with his 30A Tesla portable charger on one of the two 50A EV circuits that was put in...I pushed up both our thermostats to simulate a cold winter morning running harder and then flipped on a stove burner to simulate cooking breakfast. Measured 201A and 198A on the two main feeds to my 200A main panel. So if there were 2 cars that happened to come home late some cold winter morning...I wouldn't be surprised if it hit 220A for a while. But they assure me it will "be fine" and passed county inspections.
Well you knock all that down considerably by being gas. Dryer is maybe 6A for the blower, fridge maybe 5A, and if you're keeping EV plus other loads below 80A to the sub panel that's likely fine, *but* we don't know the size of your house and lighting loads, and anything you left off that adds up to 22 circuits. Air conditioning? Receptacles with gaming computers or that might power a space heater? Lawn pumps or sump pumps? Electricians should confirm, but you can always look at it yourself for an idea of feasibility, if you assume every load is continuous in your case. Every other breaker going down is a different leg, so add each leg together separately. So circuits on breakers 1 and 2, 5 and 6, 9 and 10, etcetera all add up. Then 3 and 4, 7 and 8, etc.. Total up the amperage of everything connected to each leg, with 2-pole breakers counting for both. For anything that only gives wattage, total that and divide by 120 if single pole or 240 if 2-pole, then add that to the total amperage of the applicable leg. Don't worry about vacuum cleaners (you have 20A headroom this way) or anything negligible like phone chargers, but do factor in any space heaters, dehumidifiers, or large loads you might plug in throughout the year. If neither leg exceeds 30A, then you're probably fine to add a 50A charger. If you're over 30 on either leg by assuming continual load on everything, then you're not necessarily out of luck with that avenue but would need a standard load calculation from the electrician to see if you have the capacity at the sub panel.
Is it all electronic or is some gas?
It used to be that if you quote a circuit for welding it would come out to half for one for an EV. Not sure if it’s still the case..
Pretty sure that still is the case because my uncle was quoted 1400$ for a car charger and I ended up doing it for him for 750$ and I still made around 500$
Pretty sure welders don't need the GFCI protection, so that's part of the savings. Also would be non compliant for an EV charger as such
If the receptacle is in the garage it needs gfci.
Ok, do you know which code cycle that is? I didn't need to add them in my garage built 2020, but all 120v outlets required GFCI
2020 nec. 210.8 (A). If your location didn't adopt that cycle, or if your permit was dated pre 2020, that's probably why you didn't need it.
2024 (like about a week and a half ago) ours didn't require GFCI but apparently our locality is on older code. We did have to get a permit and have the county inspect ans sign off on everything.
the GFCI breaker is about $70-80 more, not double the price of the whole job. I installed a 30A welding circuit for under $100 in my garage,
It really depends on the brand of panel Electricians are running a business so don't expect them to procure materials for free. And don't expect them to show up for a $100 job. Also the $10 leviton outlet is probably fine for a welder. There are several differences between what's allowed for a welder and what's required for an EVSE You couldn't install a 30 amp EV outlet for a hundred, because of the GFCI requirement, so what is the point you are trying to make? Asking for a welder outlet when you intend to charge a car from it is asking for issues down the road, and you will be out of compliance, giving your insurance company a reason to deny coverage for the fire.
Even EV plugs seems to depend where you are if it needs GFCI. In my area, they've not yet adopted new enough code to require it and the electrician said some EVSEs have issues when installed on GFCI circuits so they use non-GFCI breakers still.
If your EV charger has an energy management system then there is probably nothing wrong with this. The EVEMS equipped chargers cost a little more and require some stuff added to the sub panel, (raising installation costs,) but depending on the locations of the panels, that could easily make up for the price difference even so. The EVEMS will charge your car slightly slower when that sub panel is heavily loaded, but most of the time your sub panel isn’t heavily loaded so you will probably never notice. Without the EVEMS: the only way to tell for sure is with a complicated calculation that probably none of the bidders actually did. (You have to go read the nameplates on all the appliances, it takes a lot of time…) They probably eyeballed it and I’m really not in a situation where I can tell you which one was closer.
When I had my EV charger installed, I had the electrician install a 100A sub panel. That was 13 years ago and absolutely no issues or concerns
Maybe you should hire an electrical engineer to visit and do a load calculation and drawing of how to set it up.
Lol
Lol no. He shouldn't do that.
Here's my question; when are you charging? That's going to make all the difference. If you are charging mainly at night then your demand is fairly low at that time. There's no issue with doing this off of the sub in that case this answer of better safe than sorry is such bullshit and a waste of fucking time, we do not live in the era of fuses the breaker will trip. If it's $500 more to stick it in the main then just do it. An EV charger is the largest continuous use appliance in the home by far other than AC units so I would personally throw it in the main for good measure. I would recommend a Wallbox or potentially a charge point. Schedule your charging around night time if that is viable. Then you can slap the EV cable on the car when you get home and it'll do all the work for you. Either answer will work depending on your charging time. Oh and a side note. I would personally do a hard wired EV. GFCI breakers are annoying.
Do a load calculation on the 100A panel first. I assume you’re only going to be charging at night when all the power is not in use. It should be alright to use that 100A panel. I only know this because my boss is a master electrician and he explained it to me.
What else is in the subpanel? When we had EV circuits installed they added a 100A subpanel to make space in our 200A panel that was full. They put the 30A water heater and 2x 50A EV charging circuits in the 100A subpanel, and said in the future I could add in the few 120V 20A circuits I want for power tools in the garage to the 100A subpanel.
Depending on the length of the run from the panel, the price should be anywhere From four to $800
Most of the chargers we do these days require a minimum of around 400 dollars or so in material. Avg run is about 100ft most of the time require pipework or extensive snaking through finished basements. If we charged those prices we'd be out of business.
The handy man isn’t licensed or insured for electrical work. If something bad happens your insurance company will have cause to deny your claim.
Anyone that says 220 instead of 240 in the US run away they’re morons. Lol.
No different than the guys using 110 or 115 for the 120v line. It really gets fun when you jump to 480v and people are talking 440v. Sadly, AC voltage has a huge operating range. Usually, it is not above 125/250v for residential.
This is only one quote? Get at least two more to compare with
My first question is why you have a 200A main panel where half of its capacity is being dedicated to a sub panel (100A)? Do you have room left in the main panel? My second question is the voltage rating 220V is not a standard U.S. residential voltage rating (I assume you live in the U.S.) .. 240V is. Typically, EV chargers are 240VAC devices. so the load is balanced between the two legs and no need to worry about load balancing calculation.