Electrician quotes

[supergenius311]

Hi all,

Tesla newbie here and anything related to electric panels newbie too. Just here to get an idea of some experiences people who have had a Tesla wall connector placed in their homes. I understand the main cost of installing a home charger depends on where the electric panel is located relative to the garage and it can vary from a few hundred to even a few thousand. I had a quote today from an electrician for $2700 to install a 70 foot copper wire through my basement to my garage and add some units to my 150A electric panel to accommodate the 50A Tesla wall connector. He said to also install a whole house surge protector, which is part of the entire cost. My question is if this quote makes any sense or if I am being ripped off? I got another quote from a Tesla verified one and he said over $5000, which is why I chose this other company that is not through the Tesla website. Now this $2700 guy said there is a lifetime warranty on it and if I don't want the surge protector the cost is $2000 even. What do you guys think and should I bother getting any more quotes or does this sound pretty reasonable based on his quote?

Thanks

 

[Jbuntz]

I would get another quote.

 

[RayK]

I'd say get a couple of more estimates. It's up to you to decide whether or not you would benefit from a whole house surge protector. The cost of that hardware shouldn't be too much; probably $100-$200 of the $700 you were quoted. The rest of it is the labor to install it.

 

[Sophias_dad]

You are getting milked like a cash cow. This is only tempered by the fact that I don't know what "70 feet through the basement" really is. Is it an empty basement? Will he be trying to fish very-difficult-to-bend wire through the finished ceiling? Will it be surface mounted conduit? Will he be trenching the concrete floor(!)?

The wire itself is likely to be $250 plus markup. A non-gfci 50 amp duplex breaker is $30 or so, depending on maker.

 

[supergenius311]

You are getting milked like a cash cow. This is only tempered by the fact that I don't know what "70 feet through the basement" really is. Is it an empty basement? Will he be trying to fish very-difficult-to-bend wire through the finished ceiling? Will it be surface mounted conduit? Will he be trenching the concrete floor(!)?

The wire itself is likely to be $250 plus markup. A non-gfci 50 amp duplex breaker is $30 or so, depending on maker.

It is 70 feet of wire that is going through a finished ceiling through the basement into the garage. Not trenching any concrete

 

[Plum Loco]

Was quoted $850 then wanted the Hubbel NEMA 14-50 flush to the wall and that brought the cost to $1000 (~60ft of 6/3) that I just got today. Super pumped to see an ~11hr charge go down to ~3.

 

[rwiegand]

I paid $1850 for installation, similar distance. It took two guys a full day to snake the wire where it needed to go. Given typical Boston prices that seems like a bargain-- I think they underestimated the difficulty but then stuck with their estimate for the bill.

 

[Rocky_H]

and add some units to my 150A electric panel to accommodate the 50A Tesla wall connector.

You're kind of doing this backward based on this part.
It's not a "50A Tesla wall connector". It's just a Tesla wall connector. It's a variable setting device that doesn't have to have a big minimum size of circuit. It can be set for circuits as low as 15A.
You should start this off the other way when you talk with electricians: "Do a load calculation and tell me what size circuit I can add to my existing panel." You should ask that first to get that information.

A lot of people find this--that a 20 or 30 or 40A circuit can usually fit with what they have, but when they are getting up to trying to fit 50 or 60 amps, there's not that much spare capacity and requires thousands of dollars in upgrades to put in more capacity to make that work.

 

[Gauss Guzzler]

... add some units to my 150A electric panel to accommodate the 50A Tesla wall connector. He said to also install a whole house surge protector...

What does "add some units" mean? Usually they just slap in the one new breaker. If they need to gang some other circuits together on tandem breakers that could account for an extra $100 or so.

Make sure they know it's a 60A circuit, not 50A.

A whole house surge protector might be a good investment if your house tends to get struck by lightning but otherwise I doubt the car cares about common household surges.

Lastly, some of the cost comes from the time the electrician expects to spend digging thru the manual of your new-fangled electrical contraption so you can save some money by learning it yourself and telling them how simple it is. Basically this: 60A standard breaker and copper conductors, bolt the thing to the wall, double check that it's set to 48A (the factory default), done.

 

[CosmosMpower]

I found the electricians on the Tesla website were a rip off. They know they have an audience and upcharge. Most the quotes from the official Tesla approved electrician list were 600-800 to install a basic NEMA 14-50 outlet right next to an existing breaker box. I ended up paying a local licensed electrician $300 instead.

 

[Sophias_dad]

I found the electricians on the Tesla website were a rip off. They know they have an audience and upcharge. Most the quotes from the official Tesla approved electrician list were 600-800 to install a basic NEMA 14-50 outlet right next to an existing breaker box. I ended up paying a local licensed electrician $300 instead.

Welcome to the Tesla Tax!

 

[bunniethedon]

Awesome info, thanks!

 

[davewill]

The first quote seems high, especially the upsell on the whole house surge protector which should be a very easy thing for him to do. If he's doing some kind of panel upgrade or running the cable is particularly labor intensive, it might be an OK price. Keep in mind that prices vary widely depending on location, and the cheapest quotes will often be by guys who will cut corners by skipping necessary permits, which are required by almost all cities/counties in the U.S. (although there are exceptions.) You end up being the one on the hook if unpermitted work is discovered later, like when you try to sell the house. You can end up having to pay to have it inspected, and possibly redone to meet code.. and it can be new code requirements that weren't in force when you did the work originally.

I also question what the hell his "lifetime" warranty means. It isn't likely that he means your lifetime, or the life of the house, so it probably actually means some fixed, but unspecified amount of time.

 

[RayK]

I also question what the hell his "lifetime" warranty means. It isn't likely that he means your lifetime, or the life of the house, so it probably actually means some fixed, but unspecified amount of time.

I generally assume that those "lifetime" warranties is for how long the person doing the job is in business. My understanding is that an owner-operator can simply rename his business and negate all of the previous warranties promised by that company name. Sure it's going to cost him/her to change the business license, stationary, signage, etc., but that may be cheaper than the alternative.

On the other hand, some people will guarantee the parts being installed are for the lifetime of said part(s), but the labor to remove and install a replacement is not covered. You gotta read the fine print in the contract.

 

[refusedmd]

my initial quote from the tesla website was 13k.

there was a tesla certified company in my area that installed the tesla wall connector for 3.5k.