Apartment charger installation

[strdst]

Trying to fight this with my OC at the moment. 148 carparks. They claim that there isn't enough power, despite the requests being only for 10A GPO to get over the line and only a handful of existing EVs. Instead, they drafted a by-law to explicitly prohibit such installations. They're the kind of people who will only fix a problem once they stand to benefit. I imagine once the "in-group" gets EVs suddenly we'll see changes.

 

[moa999]

Trying to fight this with my OC at the moment. 148 carparks. They claim that there isn't enough power, despite the requests being only for 10A GPO to get over the line and only a handful of existing EVs. Instead, they drafted a by-law to explicitly prohibit such installations. They're the kind of people who will only fix a problem once they stand to benefit. I imagine once the "in-group" gets EVs suddenly we'll see changes.

Wow.
I could imagine a by-law stating you can't charge off a random unmetered power point in the garage would be fair enough... but a blanket no is just crazy.

Can only suggest to try and get yourself on the OC.

Or in the meantime flood them with requests such as you are very concerned that Mrs xxx in Unit yyy will blow the power fuse in winter, as she tells you she feels the cold so runs 6 2400W fan heaters at the same time.

Also note in that Wattblock video with Tom, one of the comments made is since most buildings were certified, many OCs have installed LED lights replacing halogens and fluros, which opens up a lot of spare power.

 

[paulp]

Trying to fight this with my OC at the moment. 148 carparks. They claim that there isn't enough power, despite the requests being only for 10A GPO to get over the line and only a handful of existing EVs. Instead, they drafted a by-law to explicitly prohibit such installations. They're the kind of people who will only fix a problem once they stand to benefit. I imagine once the "in-group" gets EVs suddenly we'll see changes.

Its why I think the easiest action is to apply for a GPO off your own meter. If you blow your own breaker then its only your problem, and avoids the issues everyone in these buildings is going to face with the environment deniers and ev haters. Not a lot of excuses that they can come up with to deny it. Presumably at some point legislation will need to occur to force ev power in existing carparks.

 

[Vostok]

Presumably at some point legislation will need to occur to force ev power in existing carparks.

The NSW government, as part of their EV and net-zero plan, intend to update building regulations to cover EV charging in apartment blocks. But I haven’t seen any detail yet of what exactly they propose to do.

The first thing they could do is make it illegal for an OC to prevent someone installing a power point or EVSE in their own allocated parking space if they are paying for it and it is metered to them.

 

[paulp]

The NSW government, as part of their EV and net-zero plan, intend to update building regulations to cover EV charging in apartment blocks. But I haven’t seen any detail yet of what exactly they propose to do.

The first thing they could do is make it illegal for an OC to prevent someone installing a power point or EVSE in their own allocated parking space if they are paying for it and it is metered to them.

I’m fairly sure its for new builds only and in the national construction code. Whether it ends up in the nsw only section of all durisdictions is yet to be seen.

 

[Ramsgate]

Hi all, I've only just read this post and I don't have a solution to offer, but I've had my M3 for 2 years and rely satisfactorily on the standard single phase point in my apartment garage. I wouldn't bother with the problems of installing the 3 phase supply.

 

[TASKA9]

Not providing any solution as well, but just different perspective. If the car was just for me and I have to choose to live in an apartment, I would pick an apartment that is relatively close to my work. so I would leave my car mostly at its parking space and walk or ride to work most days. Or even if I live 20km away, I would still ride to work. electric one would make a short work of riding. then Ramsgate's solution or a public charger could suddenly be the answers.

I ride to work everyday before the covid. now if I have to get back to the office, I would probably run to it. The car is just for our weekend work and the indulgence.

 

[moa999]

Rely satisfactorily on the standard single phase point in my apartment garage. I wouldn't bother with the problems of installing the 3 phase supply.

That works if the single phase point in your garage is on your supply.

The greater issue is for people who have no existing points, or the only existing ones are on a shared strata circuit designed for cleaning/ door operation and not for charging (typically on a 20A fuse)

 

[strdst]

Yep, I'd love to be able to get my apartment power down there. But any power installation is unfortunately off building power and so they can deny the request. I hope Vic also brings in legislation that means you can't prohibit installations if you're an owner and the usage is metered. Somehow we got the Supreme Court to say that you can't ban short stays, surely this would be something good to have as well.

 

[samywamy10]

Update: The proposal is still with the Owners Corp. At first, it was "we'll get back to you by the end of the week", and then the following week "the OC have a meeting on Wednesday night we'll get back to you shortly", then "we'll have a formal response to you by the end of next week" (which ended yesterday), now they want to meet with the electrician onsite for some "logistical questions". My proposal was fairly detailed so I'm not sure what questions they have. I'm interested to know what their thoughts are, but they're giving me nothing - I've offered to meet with them a few times but they don't seem to feel the need. At least it sounds like they're giving it fair consideration.

I've also asked if I can just park in one of the guest car spaces that's next to a 240v outlet temporarily. Hoping this will be a good stepping stone, and hopefully incentivise this process to go a bit quicker (to get me out of the guest car space).

Fingers crossed... hopefully I can get this installed and share some learnings for the next person.

 

[sas076]

Hi All, not sure if this helps anyone but I'm trying to do the same i.e. getting approval from OC for an EV charging setup in my apartment(i.e. basement level). So far my strata manager is in favour of this request and has actually helped me getting an inspection/SOW done by one of the vendors. This is supposed to go in front of the OC as part of AGM (probably Early Jan 22) however I have already started to socialize this with other strata committee members(I'm one of them) and few owners. I've been getting a positive response so far and hoping there are no surprises during the meeting. To keep things simple and easy to digest for the owners my SOW request is to install a 20A general outlet that too connected to my Unit's meter all at my expense and I've stated to comply by all the building safety requirements. Even though it's still early days, based on my personal experience I felt if you can keep the ask relatively small(e.g. 15Amp or 20Amp outlet) and simple(I say it's like adding another socket to your bathroom) with clearly stating no extra cost or impact to them then its easier to get their buy-in. Ofcourse, there will be few idiots going crazy for no reason but as far as you can manage a majority during the meeting you should be able to get through approval. Once done, I don't see a problem in directly dealing with the vendor to tweak the requirements little bit to get what you need(in my case as part of the inspection I got reports about all the charging options possible ranging from low to high without having any major changes to the existing electrical systems along with a safety buffer for load issues but my SOW for the OC only talks about the lowest option). Again, this may not work for everyone but if anyone is in similar situation you could give this a try. Also I'll keep you updated on my progress.

 

[GrimRe]

Thought I'd chime in with my personal experience--

Usually in apartment complexes the actual meters are all consolidate in one area. In an electrical cupboard or something like that. Its possible to integrate an additional circuit directly at this point without needing to take a circuit all the way to the circuit board inside individual apartments. Basically there is an extra breaker per unit installed connecting to the meter. Think of it like another circuit board outside of your unit.

Moreover there are usually risers that go from the garage to the top. What I would suggest is that the OC pays to run X number of cables into the garage terminated neatly into a junction box. From there each owner is responsible for running a cable to the junction box.

We did this and was very cost effective.

 

[sas076]

Thought I'd chime in with my personal experience--

Usually in apartment complexes the actual meters are all consolidate in one area. In an electrical cupboard or something like that. Its possible to integrate an additional circuit directly at this point without needing to take a circuit all the way to the circuit board inside individual apartments. Basically there is an extra breaker per unit installed connecting to the meter. Think of it like another circuit board outside of your unit.

Moreover there are usually risers that go from the garage to the top. What I would suggest is that the OC pays to run X number of cables into the garage terminated neatly into a junction box. From there each owner is responsible for running a cable to the junction box.

We did this and was very cost effective.

Agree its cost effective but brings in the extra risk of not getting majority votes in OC as it would incur shared cost and not many would have motivation to do this. It would mean more effort and tactics on your side to get this moving. In my case I’m doing the exact same thing you mentioned but at my expense(costs me extra 500 that’s it far better than doing “how do you do” pleasantries and multiple rounds of meetings)

 

[samywamy10]

Took me a massive amount of time to get set up, but I finally got my charger installed with approval from the OC. I've made a full video about it here if interested:

 

[Vostok]

Took me a massive amount of time to get set up, but I finally got my charger installed with approval from the OC.

Wow… $5250 is a serious level of commitment. But now that you’ve done it, you have a capital asset that improves the value of your apartment.

I think you got dudded by your lawyer… $1000 is a bit steep when I’m pretty sure there are template agreements for leasing common property floating around the internet.

Do you know how big the riser is in your building... I’m thinking whether your solution is scalable, because it might have been more cost effective to run 50 cables, one from every unit, down the riser in one go, to a common termination point or sub-board in the car park. Then any subsequent owner wanting to install an EV charger would have a much easier job, just running conduit from that point to their car space.

Of course you’d need every owner to agree to stumping up 2% of the total cost of that, but it might have been worth it.

 

[cafz]

Took me a massive amount of time to get set up, but I finally got my charger installed with approval from the OC.

You should try switching to Scheduled Departure for overnight off-peak charging - it helps in winter having your battery start the day warm because it finished charging only an hour or two before you leave.