The Money Mustache Community
General Discussion => Share Your Badassity => Topic started by: flannel on November 05, 2018, 05:24:19 PM
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I needed a way to charge my wife’s new electric car and got a quote from an electrician to install a charging station in the garage. Their quote was over $3100 including a new electric panel and increasing the electric service to the property. I did some research and figured out that a 240v outlet could be run off the existing panel with a quick change to a couple tandem breakers with no upgrade to the service (already 300 amps!). Same charging capability, and doesn’t require buying special equipment from manufacturer. $280, installed by a licensed electrician, and working great.
Lesson learned: do research before paying more than seems reasonable.
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I needed a way to charge my wife’s new electric car and got a quote from an electrician to install a charging station in the garage. Their quote was over $3100 including a new electric panel and increasing the electric service to the property. I did some research and figured out that a 240v outlet could be run off the existing panel with a quick change to a couple tandem breakers with no upgrade to the service (already 300 amps!). Same charging capability, and doesn’t require buying special equipment from manufacturer. $280, installed by a licensed electrician, and working great.
Lesson learned: do research before paying more than seems reasonable.
$3100!!! Holy F***
Good work on doing your research and not being suckered in.
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First guy was looking for a sucker. Glad he didn't find one.
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First guy was looking for a sucker. Glad he didn't find one.
Likely fishing for Tesla owners. "Oh, yeah, I just dropped $100k on a car, I suppose a few grand to charge it is reasonable."
I need to mess with tandem breakers for my outdoor box. I've got a couple 240V devices in there and am nearly out of slots. The Volt currently charges on 120V/12A, which... actually, works well enough for now. But I'd like to get 240V out there in case we upgrade to a pure electric at some point.
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Ended up DIY on mine. Turns out the “Heater” circuit was unused after the previous owner installed a natural gas system. So I popped out the 60A tandem, and popped in the 25A spec’d breaker and routed the wires in via a box for the AC wiring. Took about an hour and $20 of stuff.
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I had planned to install a 240V outlet, but I’ve been finding it more than adequate to charge on 120V. I can get 70km of range back in the evening and my round trip commute is 50km so I can gain ground over the week. If it’s really necessary, I can go work for an hour at a coffee shop where there’s a free charger that gives almost 40km of range per hour. I’m reconsidering whether it’s worth adding the 240V at all. There’s a good provincial incentive that helps with the cost, but so far I’m not seeing the need.
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Good job avoiding that scam. I think a lot of people find charging the car a bit scary but it's not really that complicated unless you need a really long range vehicle.
We're using a 120V outlet every other night to charge my wife's car. She doesn't drive more than ~10 miles in a day, though. I generally bike to work. As a result, we haven't used more than 1 gallon of gas in the last month!