Building a new house, being prepared

[suku18]

Hi All,
A newbie here and have been fascinated by all the readings I have done till now on the forum.

Ordered my RWD Blue/Black Seats on the 25th of Jan .

We are building a new house in Canberra and have an appointment with the electrician to set up our house on this Sunday.

Although the delivery is a bit far but I am hoping it will coincide with us moving into our new house in May/June.

What all should I ask the electrician at the appt. I am hoping it will be a 3 Phase connection to my house and I will be applying to install Solar with battery at my place. What additional information or connections would I need to ask the electrician to install in the Garage to get a better charging experience.

I am hoping to buy a Tesla Wall charger Gen 3 when it becomes available. I am hoping if someone can help me in what all is important to be done for us to be ready as we are still in the building phase and any changes can be made at this stage instead of later.

Thanks

 

[cafz]

Ask to get a 3-phase connection to the house - it's much cheaper to get this done now rather than try to retrofit later, and it'll allow exporting up to 15kW of solar instead of 5kW.

Get a 32A 3-phase circuit terminated in either a socket or just a junction box at the garage. That'll be easy to swap over to a wall connector when it arrives (the Model 3 can only charge at 16A per phase, but a 32A circuit will allow you to add a second wall connector for a second vehicle sometime down the track).

 

[Nobody Famous]

Weigh up the cost of a 22kW 3 phase circuit that you will use 11kW Max vs a Single Phase 32A circuit (7.2kW).

Also crunch the numbers on a Home Battery before you commit to that.

 

[Nobody Famous]

allow exporting up to 15kW

Roof Space for 40kW of panels would be a nice problem to have.

 

[cafz]

12-13kW of panels and a 10kW inverter is table stakes these days.

 

[paulp]

I agree with everything @cafz said above (3 posts up)
Also think about putting in cables or conduits (or access hatches) for your future solar and battery rather than having surface mounted later.
Not car related…its always good to have powerpoints (electrician will call it a gpo) at a nice hieght. Avoid skirting or low. Dont overdo the powerpoints though, but put plenty behind desks, tv’s, and in the kitchen, and if behind a wall mounted tv ask for a recessed box so that the plug doesnt cause a big gap behind tv. If its a large or two level house, throw in some cat 6 for a couple of decent wifi access points under the ceiling. You need strong wifi to that tesla.
Depending on the size of your house, solar, and the power you use, the powerwall will provide backup, however if you have 3 phase power only one phase will be backed up, so think carefully and give the electrician a list of everything you want on that backed up phase.

 

[suku18]

Thanks a lot everyone. Really appreciate the advices given.
WIll talk to the electrician once I meet him to discuss all this. I think the builder wont agree to these additional costs, but any idea what I added expenses I am looking at to have this setup.
Just being mindful of some other expenses coming up with setting up the new house which are not included by the builder.

 

[paulp]

Thanks a lot everyone. Really appreciate the advices given.
WIll talk to the electrician once I meet him to discuss all this. I think the builder wont agree to these additional costs, but any idea what I added expenses I am looking at to have this setup.
Just being mindful of some other expenses coming up with setting up the new house which are not included by the builder.

Anything you can do later away from the builder is probably going to be cheaper.

 

[jamesgo]

Adding to what paulp said, The easiest and biggest saving item you can do before the plaster/walls go up is to put some conduit piping down the walls to put cabling through later, in particular from the roof to where your solar inverter/battery will be.

It's good to do any ethernet cabling trunking or at least put in the conduit for future ethernet cabling.

 

[louco73]

Agree with all the above. Think about where your wiring will terminate and if you are going to put a rack in for a network switch, security camera server, wifi router, NBN termination, etc. I have all that plus my home theatre PC, bluray player, 2 amps and a processor in a full rack. Put a temperature activated fan above all that stuff to exhaust the heat out somewhere. That's space you need to allocate in the house design.

You didn't mention home automation, e.g. do you want smart lights, sensors, voice activation, keyless entry, doorbell/camera, alarm, etc. You need to plan ahead for that with your electrician too.

I ran two 3 phase cables, one of each side of the garage. Installed a Tesla wall charger on one and have left the other behind the wall for when I get my wife an electric car (probably a Japanese imported Leaf), so I can add another charger like a Zappi, if needed.

 

[suku18]

Thanks a lot everyone. This is good information.
Will see how the meeting with the electrician goes. Hopefully he agrees to all this.

 

[GrimRe]

Just be aware of PW2 being single phase only (if you are going down that route). there is a gateway module that will net out on the other two phases but only 1 phase will be backed up.

if your house is only single phase hookup or its very expensive to get 3-phase its really not the end of the world. If you can get a 63A service, you could still run DWH, EV, oven, dryer, AirCon all at the same time at under 63A.

There may also be the PW2+ out in AU by that stage which is hooked up slightly differently. It basically sits in front of your main switch board so it backs up all the circuits but can only output 15kW peak so it may behove you to try and have an energy efficient household.

 

[moa999]

think the builder wont agree to these additional costs, but any idea what I added expenses I am looking at to have this setup.

You can guarantee that.
These are variations - that's how many builders make their money.

If it's not in the initial contract it will be expensive.

That said, stuff behind walls can be even more expensive later on.

If you know you are going to have big power, data requirements I'd always negotiate them up front, rather than after you've signed the contract.

 

[Vostok]

12-13kW of panels and a 10kW inverter is table stakes these days.

Not in the inner city where roofspace is extremely limited. And sometimes the only roof plane is the one facing the street and most Councils prohibit solar panels being installed on street-facing roof planes.

 

[paulp]

Not in the inner city where roofspace is extremely limited. And sometimes the only roof plane is the one facing the street and most Councils prohibit solar panels being installed on street-facing roof planes.

In SA councils have no solar panel restrictions and only power authority approval is required

 

[Vostok]

I am hoping it will be a 3 Phase connection to my house and I will be applying to install Solar with battery at my place.

Just be aware that 3-phase does have its downside if you also get a battery. The battery can only back-up one of your three phases, and you’ll need to choose which one.

And if you are building, that also means deciding which sockets and lights in the house you want connected to specific phases - and you may not have complete freedom in doing that depending on how balanced the loads end up being. Or just leave it to the sparky, but you’ll get a very random outcome that is unlikely to satisfy you.

Our house had 3-phase power pre-existing, and the bits of the house connected to each phase is not optimal from the point of view of which bits continue to work when there is a grid outage. We will swap some of the circuits to the backed-up phase to improve it, but changing specific GPOs/lights from one circuit to another so that they are on a circuit on a phase that is backed up in an already built house is either impossible or horrendously expensive.

I’m also not sure either that 3 batteries could back up a 3-phase house, I don’t know if they can be configured that way. Also 3 batteries would be economic insanity.

 

[paulp]

Just be aware that 3-phase does have its downside if you also get a battery. The battery can only back-up one of your three phases, and you’ll need to choose which one.

And if you are building, that also means deciding which sockets and lights in the house you want connected to specific phases - and you may not have complete freedom in doing that depending on how balanced the loads end up being. Or just leave it to the sparky, but you’ll get a very random outcome that is unlikely to satisfy you.

Our house had 3-phase power pre-existing, and the bits of the house connected to each phase is not optimal from the point of view of which bits continue to work when there is a grid outage. We will swap some of the circuits to the backed-up phase to improve it, but changing specific GPOs/lights from one circuit to another so that they are on a circuit on a phase that is backed up in an already built house is either impossible or horrendously expensive.

I’m also not sure either that 3 batteries could back up a 3-phase house, I don’t know if they can be configured that way. Also 3 batteries would be economic insanity.

powerwall can only back up one of 3 phases. The number of batteries doesn’t change that.
3 batteries is not economic insanity if you have enough solar to fill them, you use the power overnight, you have low FIT, and high import costs.

 

[atj777]

Our house had 3-phase power pre-existing, and the bits of the house connected to each phase is not optimal from the point of view of which bits continue to work when there is a grid outage. We will swap some of the circuits to the backed-up phase to improve it, but changing specific GPOs/lights from one circuit to another so that they are on a circuit on a phase that is backed up in an already built house is either impossible or horrendously expensive.

Shouldn't be difficult or expensive. All the circuits should go back to the main board or a nearby sub board so it is just a matter of changing where they connect.

 

[suku18]

So If I buy the Tesla wall charger , which one should I buy to go with the three phase connection to the house, Gen2 or Gen3?

 

[Nobody Famous]

which one should I buy to go with the three phase connection to the house

Gen 3 offers Legacy Mode, so go with that if the UMC doesn't do it for you. I doubt Gen 2 will restock once sold out.