Charging w/ house electrical issue

happy intruder

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One of the mistakes builders/homeowners make is they install a breaker panel that is too small (a 100 amp panel may be good for a small house with not many loads but they trip breakers pretty quick when bigger loads are used). So a 200 amp panel would be great and you prolly wont trip any breakers even when using 240v with 50-80amp output ( assuming you don't have a jacuzzi, heated pool, sauna, hot tub... then you may need a 400 amp or bigger) - but a 100 amp would be tripping a lot.

If you need to "save money" a good way is to determine what volt&amp you will be using then buy the breaker(s), wire, wire length, wire clamps and female connector/outlet and run the lines yourself then pay an electrician to do the termination at the breaker and outlet ( if your electrical code allows such).
my home is 45 years old...primary residence....when built, Warmington used a 100a panel.....no pool, gas appliances, no Tesla charger and no air-conditioning.....I installed a/c and a pool.....upgraded some breakers.....

when I went to add the Tesla HPWC (gen 2) I did the calculations and I was within code by using only 50a breakers for the charger.....my panel is now full....no more space....

I am contemplating Tesla solar panels and 2 power walls.....in order to do this I am upgrading my panel this weekend to a 200a panel with solar......then I can run 100a sub-panel for the solar......

I agree, I am an electrical engineer from Ga Tech and am pretty familiar with electricity....but, I agree, you probably want to run lines and have the certified electrician connect....thats what I am doing....I have never experienced and tripping of any of my circuits in the 100a panel as of yet, but I do not want to take any chances.....one advantage I have is that all my wiring is 12awg copper.....I found that out when I had a charred light switch.....so I bought 175 outlets and light switches only to find that I could not just slip into the fixture.....everything now is 14-16awg....I have to cut, stripe and hand mount.....took 10 days.....but I feel good now that everything is new.....I also pulled new wires for the pool equipment....what a pain that was .....over 300 feet for 3 wires and 7 turns and gates.....

so I hope he does it right and things go well.....but do get a certified electrician
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My house was built by KB Homes (we all know where this is going), and very recently we experienced our electrical system shorted out; this was due to the house builder cutting corners when building the house back in 2013. Never experienced this before, but now it got me wondering how safe and efficient would it be to install the Tesla Wall charger to my garage.

Is it feasible just to do this and hope the rest of the house power won't go out like it did recently or go to Wawa which has the Supercharger stations and charge there?
I believe Tesla has a list of recommended Electricians for your area. When I added the Tesla wall charger in my garage my electrician upgraded my aux panel. My main panel had been upgraded prior to that when I had my Tesla (Solar City) panels installed.
 
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I believe Tesla has a list of recommended Electricians for your area. When I added the Tesla wall charger in my garage my electrician upgraded my aux panel. My main panel had been upgraded prior to that when I had my Tesla (Solar City) panels installed.
I hope they have a list of certified electricians for my area. I personally haven't asked them when I was at the Tesla showrooms in Miami and in Orlando. I might have to ask whenever I am in the vicinity of a Tesla showroom.
 

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I hope they have a list of certified electricians for my area. I personally haven't asked them when I was at the Tesla showrooms in Miami and in Orlando. I might have to ask whenever I am in the vicinity of a Tesla showroom.
The Tesla online site is not, in my aged opinion, that easy to navigate to gain information. BUT I would give it a shot to see if there is a list of Certified Installers for your area that might be willing to come out and take a look at your electrical needs. I was lucky enough to have access to a good electrician who upgraded my auxiliary panel in my garage for $500! I've charged my wife's Tesla Model 3 LR since purchased in October of 2018 with no problems. Good Luck!
 

HaulingAss

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My house was built by KB Homes (we all know where this is going), and very recently we experienced our electrical system shorted out; this was due to the house builder cutting corners when building the house back in 2013. Never experienced this before, but now it got me wondering how safe and efficient would it be to install the Tesla Wall charger to my garage.

Is it feasible just to do this and hope the rest of the house power won't go out like it did recently or go to Wawa which has the Supercharger stations and charge there?
An EV charger is always on it's own circuit. So like Crissa said, the electrician adding the new circuit will be able to tell if there are any issues. No matter how cheaply your house was built it will almost certainly have a 200 amp panel because the price is typically the same as a 100 amp panel and in most areas 200 amps was standard for single family homes by 2013. And the power feed coming from the street is typically installed by the utility company so the builder would have nothing to do with that. In short, get a competent electrician and go from there. I suspect you won't have any issues.
 


HaulingAss

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The Tesla online site is not, in my aged opinion, that easy to navigate to gain information. BUT I would give it a shot to see if there is a list of Certified Installers for your area that might be willing to come out and take a look at your electrical needs. I was lucky enough to have access to a good electrician who upgraded my auxiliary panel in my garage for $500! I've charged my wife's Tesla Model 3 LR since purchased in October of 2018 with no problems. Good Luck!
There is no advantage to using a Tesla certified installer because Tesla doesn't vet them except perhaps to insure they are certified, licensed and bonded which all reputable electricians are. Some Tesla certified electricians are not all that good. By 2021 (now) I would expect most experienced electricians in most areas have a decent amount of experience with EVSE. I installed my own Tesla Wall connector and the most time consuming part was the research which I did overkill on. But the actual install is probably safer and higher quality than most licensed electricians would have done because I paid more attention to detail than was absolutely necessary. I had a lot of fun doing it too.
 

ajdelange

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When I mean shorting out (I'm no electrical engineer, just a beginner DIY car electronics guy), I was saying some of the power within the breaker box just cut off due to KB Homes cheaping out on the electricals (apparently it just ONLY took 1 light bulb to burn the wiring and cause the short).
I cannot imagine what sort of miswiring would lead to an event like that.


We definitely do have to check if the other box that is for the main floor can be fitted with copper wiring and can survive the charging load that EVs ask for via the additional breaker,
I'm not sure what you mean here. A panel can usually be (and often is) fed with aluminum wire (though some jurisdictions forbid it) and I think sub panels can be fed with it too, but branch circuits have to be copper and the HPWC is to be wired to copper conductors only.

Now I don't like aluminum especially where there is moisture around. On my latest project (BEV garage) the general contractor's electrician wired the service to my panel with aluminum while I was away for the summer. Fortunately it was only 9' to the disconnect so I replaced it with copper (3/0 @ $7.00/ft x 3 conductors). I guess you could call that retrofitting with copper.


considering the fact my father now is thinking about getting a Model Y or Model 3 or the BMW iX; which means we need to install a wall charger sometime down the line. Currently the 110 watt outlet is more accessible since we have one that's near the fuse boxes. The 240 watt is on the 2nd floor, so not sure how I would be able to use that.
Panels are bi-phase meaning they have two 120V circuits in them. A 120V outlet taps one or the other of the circuits while a 240V outlet (or applance) connects to both. Thus if there is a panel, you can get 120 or 240 from it. But as to whether the panel can have another 60A breaker installed in it is a different matter. It ultimately depends on the inspector. A 200A panel (one with a 200A main breaker) can generally be populated with 800 pole-amperes worth of breakers i.e. the sum of the numbers on the ends of the toggles can be 800 A and usually a bit more (with the size of the "bit" being at the inspectors discretion). A 60 A breaker adds 120 pole-amperes. Of course the other consideration is whether there are any slots available for a 60A breaker. One often can get one into even a panel with every slot taken by removing some of the standard width breakers already installed and replacing them with slim style breakers (half the width). The panel must have stabs that accommodate the slim style and old ones don't.

The person that can answer questions about whether this can be done or not and who knows how many pole amperes the local inspector will tollerate is your local competent electrician. I put competent in italics for emphasis because a good electrician is hard to find. My definition is one who will do what you want him to do not what he wants to do and who understands why you want it done the way you want it done or inform you that the way you want it done won't get past the local inspector. Example: If it's a new panel tell the guy you don't want the service connection to aluminum (but be prepared to pay extra). Before the work starts there is a consensus between you and the electrician. I recognize that this is more likely to occur between an engineer (especially an electrical one) and an electrician that with an art history major. In any case finding a qualified electrician is going to be difficult.
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