Just ordered the wifey b-day present; Model 3 and getting ready for a charging station. Unfortunately the 200 amp Service panel is on the East side of 2-story house and garage on the west side. Had a "Tesla-recommended" electrician quote 3-4k price to run conduit up the outside, punch into 2nd story attic then across and down into garage. Gotta be a better way. Had another electrician recommend 6/3 UF and trench the 40 feet directly over to garage in front of house. That seems more reasonable; but i am basically clueless when it comes to electrical stuff like this. Anyone have thoughts on the $900 UF vs $3500 circumnavigation? The ground in front is fill dirt and should be fine for a trencher guy to to the 24 inch required by code. Can the UF be housed in conduit for safety? (he wasn't sure).
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Brand new; first thread. Charging station for Model 3 for wifey
- Thread starter nomotor
- Start date
Kimmi
Member
My panel was 70' and on the oppsite side of the house from where the charger was to be located. TwoTesla recommended guys were $2,400.00 & $2800.00. My local incensed electrician charged $1150.00. YMMV
How many miles will she be driving per day? The cheapest initial way may just be to use 120/15 amps = about 4 miles/hr. Average American commute is about 30 miles / day - so assuming she sleeps that's what you need on an avg daily basis...
I'd definitely do the UF path or something similar. I >hate< conduit-ish things running all over the outside of a house. Sometimes its needed, usually its just someone not wanting to do the extra effort to go inside. Do you not have a basement?
UF can be direct buried at 24 inches, in PVC conduit at 18 inches, or in rigid or intermediate metal conduit at SIX inches below ground. If you are gonna go conduit, you can just use THWN conductors and skip the UF.
I vaguely recall other armored, rubber coated cabling, but I'm not sure if its direct burial or even outdoor rated. I'll have a look a bit later.
But yeah... see if you even need ANY new circuits, like if you actually have a 20 amp 120V circuit going to the garage already. (Note you can completely ignore the garage door loads for charging purposes, so if you look up and see a 20 amp outlet, say hello to 7mph charging!) Also note that even if the outlets are 15A rated, it doesn't mean they are connected to a 15 amp breaker(you'd have to check on that at your breaker box). In that case, its a 10 minute outlet swap to get you to a 20 amp outlet(16 amp charging)
Also, if there's already a dedicated singular outlet in the garage for ANYTHING and it can be repurposed, it could become a 240V outlet with a simple breaker/outlet change.
UF can be direct buried at 24 inches, in PVC conduit at 18 inches, or in rigid or intermediate metal conduit at SIX inches below ground. If you are gonna go conduit, you can just use THWN conductors and skip the UF.
I vaguely recall other armored, rubber coated cabling, but I'm not sure if its direct burial or even outdoor rated. I'll have a look a bit later.
But yeah... see if you even need ANY new circuits, like if you actually have a 20 amp 120V circuit going to the garage already. (Note you can completely ignore the garage door loads for charging purposes, so if you look up and see a 20 amp outlet, say hello to 7mph charging!) Also note that even if the outlets are 15A rated, it doesn't mean they are connected to a 15 amp breaker(you'd have to check on that at your breaker box). In that case, its a 10 minute outlet swap to get you to a 20 amp outlet(16 amp charging)
Also, if there's already a dedicated singular outlet in the garage for ANYTHING and it can be repurposed, it could become a 240V outlet with a simple breaker/outlet change.
I believe the other armored cabling I was thinking of is Teck 90 cable, which seems to be a form of PVC jacketed MC cable.
6-3C w/ Ground Teck 90 Cable, Aluminum Interlocked Armor, 1kV , for instance. I'm not sure of the required burial depth on these items. I >am< pretty surprised at their competitive pricing, comparing 6/3 Teck 90 at 4.16 a foot to three 6AWG THWN lines($3.18) plus an 8AWG ground (0.92) gets us to $4.10, and you haven't even bought the conduit or fittings for the THWN yet. I could understand opting for the conduit if you might have more circuits later, but then again, you could upsize the Teck 90 to get it to drive a subpanel in your garage, too.
6-3C w/ Ground Teck 90 Cable, Aluminum Interlocked Armor, 1kV , for instance. I'm not sure of the required burial depth on these items. I >am< pretty surprised at their competitive pricing, comparing 6/3 Teck 90 at 4.16 a foot to three 6AWG THWN lines($3.18) plus an 8AWG ground (0.92) gets us to $4.10, and you haven't even bought the conduit or fittings for the THWN yet. I could understand opting for the conduit if you might have more circuits later, but then again, you could upsize the Teck 90 to get it to drive a subpanel in your garage, too.
Gauss Guzzler
Safety Score = 42
$900 to trench UF thru 40 feet of caliche sounds more than fair. And you'll get 30% back from the IRS too.
You could make it slightly cheaper with 6/2, but one nice advantage of 6/3 is that you can easily convert it to a sub panel if desired. It'd only be a 50A sub panel but you can still branch out a bunch of 50A circuits from it for a second car charger, a welder, table saw, air conditioning, etc. as long as you don't use them all at the same time.
You could make it slightly cheaper with 6/2, but one nice advantage of 6/3 is that you can easily convert it to a sub panel if desired. It'd only be a 50A sub panel but you can still branch out a bunch of 50A circuits from it for a second car charger, a welder, table saw, air conditioning, etc. as long as you don't use them all at the same time.
Actually, in conduit 6 awg is good for 65A, and 4awg is 85, and IIRC you are even allowed to round up on the breaker size to the next reasonably available size(!), which I assume is 75A and either 90 or 100A, but only if the calculated load doesn't exceed that original (65 or 85) ampacity rating. This means you can't just round up your 55 amp rated NMB wire's breaker to 60 amps and then pull 48 amps from it(well, you can, but its not to code!). I suppose the round-up rule might be more reasonably applied to a breaker feeding a line headed to a subpanel.$900 to trench UF thru 40 feet of caliche sounds more than fair. And you'll get 30% back from the IRS too.
You could make it slightly cheaper with 6/2, but one nice advantage of 6/3 is that you can easily convert it to a sub panel if desired. It'd only be a 50A sub panel but you can still branch out a bunch of 50A circuits from it for a second car charger, a welder, table saw, air conditioning, etc. as long as you don't use them all at the same time.
wow!
Thanks all for the thoughtful responses.
A couple of answers to questions above:
1. She will be driving to and from school; round trip about 30 miles daily
2. From a cost perspective, this is really more about the journey and less about the destination. That is, i really want the 50amp 220v to fulfill the nerd in me.
3. I don't envision putting a sub-panel in the garage; though it could pay dividends possibly for the next owner. . . . his challenge, not mine and my welding days are behind me now.
4. No basement.
5. The plan is to trench to 18 inches (the 24 inch required depth gets challenging for my trencher guy).. House the 6/3 UF in 1 inch elec pvc conduit (strictly for protection purposes).
6. Hire a professional electrician to do the service panel work at the back end and the connection work at the front end (Gen 3 charger).
Looking for holes in my plan here
Thanks all for the thoughtful responses.
A couple of answers to questions above:
1. She will be driving to and from school; round trip about 30 miles daily
2. From a cost perspective, this is really more about the journey and less about the destination. That is, i really want the 50amp 220v to fulfill the nerd in me.
3. I don't envision putting a sub-panel in the garage; though it could pay dividends possibly for the next owner. . . . his challenge, not mine and my welding days are behind me now.
4. No basement.
5. The plan is to trench to 18 inches (the 24 inch required depth gets challenging for my trencher guy).. House the 6/3 UF in 1 inch elec pvc conduit (strictly for protection purposes).
6. Hire a professional electrician to do the service panel work at the back end and the connection work at the front end (Gen 3 charger).
Looking for holes in my plan here
If you're going to go all the way and run conduit, use 6AWG THHN and get the full 60 amp experience. Don't waste time with UF (or romex) inside conduit, that's silly and going to be a pain in the butt to work with.wow!
Thanks all for the thoughtful responses.
A couple of answers to questions above:
1. She will be driving to and from school; round trip about 30 miles daily
2. From a cost perspective, this is really more about the journey and less about the destination. That is, i really want the 50amp 220v to fulfill the nerd in me.
3. I don't envision putting a sub-panel in the garage; though it could pay dividends possibly for the next owner. . . . his challenge, not mine and my welding days are behind me now.
4. No basement.
5. The plan is to trench to 18 inches (the 24 inch required depth gets challenging for my trencher guy).. House the 6/3 UF in 1 inch elec pvc conduit (strictly for protection purposes).
6. Hire a professional electrician to do the service panel work at the back end and the connection work at the front end (Gen 3 charger).
Looking for holes in my plan here
Gauss Guzzler
Safety Score = 42
Agree, it's probably against code to put UF in conduit anyway. It could fill up with water or have other problems. Plus you'd need huge conduit and it'd be a lot more work. UF is fine by itself, it's a lot more rugged than it looks and that's exactly what it's designed for.
well ... as with any endeavor flexibility and acceptance of change is necessary.
The Blue Stake folks were out and marked locations for gas, electric, water, cable. Gas was too close for comfort to my "white" proposed trench line (even though the guy said it was down 36 inches). Based on the feedback and research, am now contemplating 1 inch galvanized with 6AWG THWN plus 10 gauge green ground buried 10 inches (6 is required)) with a 50amp cb. Anyone got a pipe-bender i can use?
The Blue Stake folks were out and marked locations for gas, electric, water, cable. Gas was too close for comfort to my "white" proposed trench line (even though the guy said it was down 36 inches). Based on the feedback and research, am now contemplating 1 inch galvanized with 6AWG THWN plus 10 gauge green ground buried 10 inches (6 is required)) with a 50amp cb. Anyone got a pipe-bender i can use?
Why stop at 50? 6 THWN is rated to support 65, and you(in theory) need a 60 amp breaker to support 48 amp charging.
I'm sure HD/Lowes rent pipe benders for cheap.
THanks SD, actually HD and L list out at $69 to $95 for the 1in conduit bender. And HD doesnt rent them either. Actually, I scoured the area and NO ONE rents them except United Rentals and while the rental price was reasonable ($12 per day), there's a $131 delivery fee.
Agree about going to 60 amp for the dedicated circuit especially now that i am contemplating pulling the two 6AWG plus grnd through the conduit.
Really appreciate the responses
Agree about going to 60 amp for the dedicated circuit especially now that i am contemplating pulling the two 6AWG plus grnd through the conduit.
Really appreciate the responses
Gauss Guzzler
Safety Score = 42
You can just buy the pre-bent elbows. You're going to have a bunch of couplers in there anyway, what's one more?
I'm surprised that you can put metal conduit underground, I would have figured it'd fill up with water, cause all kinds of problems, and then rust away into a crumble. But I know nothing about trenching, hopefully you do.
I'm surprised that you can put metal conduit underground, I would have figured it'd fill up with water, cause all kinds of problems, and then rust away into a crumble. But I know nothing about trenching, hopefully you do.
I have no information or citations and am just some guy, but that also sounds crazy to me. I can't imagine that would be OK to use metal conduit buried like that. Rusting would be my main thought.
I've noticed that the power company transitions from PVC to metal when they run primary power underground. I think that if it's galvanized it won't rust. They probably do it so that if there's an issue with the cable it shorts to the metal and trips a breaker instead of leaving several thousand volts lying in wait for the poor person who stumbles upon it.
Plus, if your electric service to your house is underground via metal conduit, you can use the conduit as a ground connection for the house - no need for a separate ground rod. At least, I read that somewhere a while back.
Plus, if your electric service to your house is underground via metal conduit, you can use the conduit as a ground connection for the house - no need for a separate ground rod. At least, I read that somewhere a while back.
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