I moved into a small apartment complex (5 units) where everyone gets a carport. Two carports have standard outlets, but mine doesn’t. Should I ask the landlord for permission to charge? Doesn’t seem like the outlets are linked to other tenants’ electricity bills—the realtor at the open house (before I was accepted) mentioned I could ask the tenant with the outlet to switch with me to charge (without going through the landlord)
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Do I need permission for this?
- Thread starter erod393
- Start date
Clark_Kent
Member
I would not ask the landlord for permission. I would just charge unless charging electric vehicles is prohibited as stipulated in a proviso of your lease agreement.
KerryOH
Member
"Easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission" Adm. Grace Hopper
Yikes, sentiment on this forum has changed a lot from a year ago apparently.
Yes, you should ask. It's not your electricity. If you happened to park next to a maintenance shed, you wouldn't even think to take some gas out of a gas can right?
The common suggestion was something like this: figure out your expected energy usage after all losses, add a few percent as a kind gesture for the convenience, and offer to pay that monthly amount to the building owner (or whoever is in charge of that). I can assist with the calculations if you want, would need a few more details from you.
EDIT: I guess a left-out detail is how you pay electrical in the first place, if at all, in these apartments. I know some places don't really charge for it directly, which causes a bit of a grey area. But if you would normally pay for what you use and charging the car wouldn't be on your bill, then something should be arranged.
Yes, you should ask. It's not your electricity. If you happened to park next to a maintenance shed, you wouldn't even think to take some gas out of a gas can right?
The common suggestion was something like this: figure out your expected energy usage after all losses, add a few percent as a kind gesture for the convenience, and offer to pay that monthly amount to the building owner (or whoever is in charge of that). I can assist with the calculations if you want, would need a few more details from you.
EDIT: I guess a left-out detail is how you pay electrical in the first place, if at all, in these apartments. I know some places don't really charge for it directly, which causes a bit of a grey area. But if you would normally pay for what you use and charging the car wouldn't be on your bill, then something should be arranged.
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ElectricIAC
Good-Natured Rascal
Just plug in. Tell em' it keeps your battery warm. At 1-1.5kw/hr its nearly inconsequential.
thanks. I pay for what I use in my unit, and charging the car wouldn’t be on my bill. Also, because I have free supercharging for a year, I wouldn’t charge often in the apartment complex, so establishing a monthly rate would be tough because I’d charge pretty rarely. I’d only charge when I’m below 20% or need more charge overnight for a morning trip
I'd encourage you to leave the free Supercharging for trips and such. Going out of your way just to charge isn't a lot of fun, especially if you have the option of plugging in overnight. But whether or not that's worth it is up to you.
It may be worth it to primarily charge at home just so you can have this discussion and thus have the option of charging at home, if that makes sense?
makes sense. Normally I’d agree, but there are two superchargers 5 minutes from me, and I have a lot of free time through this year. But you make a good point about getting the landlord discussion going. Do you think it’d be odd if I bring it up in, say, January instead?
Nope, it wouldnt. it would be very easy to say something like "I normally charge at superchargers, but given my upcoming work, I would like to explore charging here".
On the other point of "should you ask"...I happen to agree with the basic viewpoint of @camalaio on this one, but with that being said, the posters that say "dont ask a question you dont want the answer to" and "easier to ask for forgiveness rather than permission" are also both correct.
If the plug was actually behind your assigned space, instead of "behind the assigned space of someone next to me" you would have plausible deniability if questioned about plugging in. Basically it would be "well, it was behind my assigned space so I thought it was ok", and that would be a reasonable statement.
Behind someone elses assigned space makes the above a less reasonable statement. Personally, "I" would ask, simply because I would not want any possibility of management coming down in 6 months presenting a bill, or, the neighbors unplugging me or damaging my cord because the plug wasnt in my space. I would be attempting to swap spaces with one of those neighbors and get buyin that its ok for me to do it.
You can always feign ignorance on the subject as others pointed out... I just wouldnt myself.
Normally those outlets are there as a convivence for small things like vacuuming out your car, and most property management companies take a dim view of using them to charge a vehicle. (For one thing they are likely all on a single circuit, so if two people tried to charge it would likely trip the circuit breaker. It might even trip if someone tried to vacuum their car while you were charging.)
tl;dr: Ask permission.
tl;dr: Ask permission.
Always ask. For now, the social contract implied for such things is that it's there for infrequent low-power consumption. If you ask and the answer is "no" then you've just avoided bad will in the future and also avoided enforcing the stereotype of EV drivers an entitled moochers.
To contextualise this a bit, to EV owners, 1.5kW off a standard 120V plug doesn't sound like a lot (it's the smallest charge option we have), but it is a lot in comparison to pretty much everything else.
It's equivalent to:
- Running a plug-in electric heater continuously (maxes out circuit)
- Running a hot water kettle, but continuously (maxes out circuit)
- About two ICE block heaters continuously (maxes out circuit)
Since this seems to have become muddy on both these forums and a local group, it needs to be said these concepts apply everywhere. For example, if a hotel offers level 2 charging, assume they're for hotel patrons only and ask if you need to use them. The best way to assure that we have limited charging options in the future (or have those options monetarily take advantage of our need to charge) is to be inconsiderate about it today.
But that's just my opinion, I guess.
In the condo complex we were in years ago, if you had a garage under your unit, the outlet was on your electrical bill and wired to your individual unit’s meter. However not everyone had garage access that way. Some had separate garages units that were from what I understand billed to the Association for any electricty used (no thoughts of EV charging when units were built and so this was simplist set up for developer. And the garages had minimal electricty used by occupants back then — garage door and overhead light and an outlet used usually for vacuuming out your car). When EVs started popping up especially with higher range batteries, the Association started seeing a jump in their electrical bills from those garage units. As I understand they either had the choice of prohibiting charging or to bill those garage owners for their prorata share of the bill since there weren’t any individual meters. No idea how that got resolved and has been working since. But yes, someone has to foot the bill and the usage will be detected. I’d be upfront and ask.
It's not the smallest. If you want to be really sure it's not loading a weak circuit too hard, you can always just lower the amps and basically trickle charge. Works well, especially when most folks still work from home...
ElectricIAC
Good-Natured Rascal
Gah, I knew I'd get called out on this if I omitted it. Fair enough, here goes:
Charging any slower than 12A on 120V gets wasteful and incredibly slow very quickly. There's a 300W overhead to charging, so only about 1140W is making it to the car already. Drop that to, say, half, so 6A, and only 420W is making it to the battery. It would take 12h just to cover a 20mi round trip at that rate, not to mention the 300W being essentially wasted while doing so. What I'm trying to say is that this is not really a viable nor cost-effective option for whoever's paying the electricity.
ElectricIAC
Good-Natured Rascal
and bill accordintly, so that people who dont have EVs are not footing the bill in places like that for people who do.
The standard ICE driver argument of there is not a gas pump in this parking lot and if there were, it wouldnt be free" applies here. Stations that are free to attract patrons (hotels, bars, grocery stores etc) are one thing, as they have made a choice to attract people. Plugging into an outlet because its "sitting there" in an apartment building that isnt tied to any specific persons bill is something else entirely.
Thanks so much everyone. I’m going to mostly exclusively supercharge for now (free + nearby), then approach the landlord in January when I begin commuting for work.
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