It’s a townhouse. Im talking real house. Your own driveway, garage, etc.This IS his house. HOA = Homeowner association.
If Tesla were *really* Tesla, these cars would charge wirelessly.
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Extension Cord Sidewalk Push Back
- Thread starter Floydsox
- Start date
I see now. He should get a real house instead of a fake house. How silly of us to miss this *obvious* solution - purchase a new house to suit the car.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
Note all of the examples you raised you can be sued for. The legal fees itself would cost you a lot of money even if the plaintiffs decide to drop the case (or most likely both decide to settle), given the court may not necessarily award you legal fees.
As for a hose washing the car, the major difference is it's attended, so you can move it when you see someone coming. This is simply not practical for a charging cable.
If the HOA has liability concerns, one option is to indemnify the HOA or to buy liability insurance to cover this case (might be an option as part of homeowners insurance or an umbrella policy). But OP would have to weigh the long term cost of that vs a more permanent solution.
I leave the cable on my lawn in the left of the pic and leave the mat on my door step. I only charge late at night now and unplug before morning.
My wife parks next to the median and I was thinking maybe I could go under the side wall there and install an outlet somehow.
Ah... that median might make things a lot easier. I'd try to get a permanent charger installed there. Trenching and buried conduit.
RayK
Active Member
Gen3 HPWC offers access controls:
Gen 3 Wall Connector Access Control
The Charging Access Control feature gives you full control over which cars are allowed to charge with your Wall Connector.
www.tesla.com
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
This makes more things possible. The grass area looks like it may be a possible place to either install a pole or an outlet box on the ground like the other thread did.
Likely common area though. Since not everyone has a median, could be an issue with other neighbors approving it if the OP locks everyone out. Sure, it’s his power bill but it’s shared space…
Maybe you could convince the HOA that this will be a good thing going forward for everyone in the complex. Unlikely but possible. Maybe when the next person buys an EV it'll happen. Swap the space next to the median to be an open charging space and your wife's car can go elsewhere. Convince them that it'll raise property values.
It’ll become like the fridges at work. No one will clean it out quick / move their car when charging is done. The space probably is assigned to the homes closest, so then someone’s gotta give up one of their spaces. Might work until they go to sell their house and they realize it has one less parking spot / less market value. AFAIK no townhome community has enough visitor space as it is, so it’ll be a sore spot when anyone leaves their car charging there past full, etc…especially visitors.
PianoAl
Active Member
Ahem. I live in NJ, but there are friends of my progeny up in Massachusetts who've (a) seen the SO and I running about in the M3 and (b) know that I'm an enthusiastic owner.. who happens to be a EE.
So, last year, out of the blue, got contacted by a person in a housing development who was a friend-of-a-friend, asking for advice about what to do about the M3 (might have been an MY) he was going to get and how to get it charged.
I spent a fair amount of time doing Google searches.
First off: There are a ridiculous number of chargers and systems out there. Everything from 240 VAC outlets like one might find at an RV campground, complete with box, hasp lock, and underground burial of the feed wire, to full-fledged high-voltage, high-current DC chargers that one can buy, non-Tesla, but with Tesla connectors and the right software. The first one might cost one a grand to put in, depending upon the electrician; the latter might be up in the $20K range.
Given the OP's layout, I'd suggest talking to the HOA about putting in some 6" high, 4"x4" box with a lock on it and a NEMA connector in the 220 VAC, 40A range. The idea is to plant it next to the curb and use your mobile connector to charge the car. The advantage of this scheme, from the HOA's perspective, is with a little paint and roundy edges on the box, it would be lawnmower/pedestrian friendly and might be expandable to new tenants who have EVs as time goes on. A Tesla-specific Wall Connector is a bit big and cludgy for the purpose, in my opinion.
The guy with whom I collaborated with was planning to see if the HOA up in MA would go for a row of charging stations, each with individual metering. (As in, if it's in a parking lot, how does the billing get handled? That wouldn't be your problem, though. Especially if you go for the hasp lock, to keep moochers out.)
So, a couple of grand for an electrician to put in a bit of underground wiring and the box. And selecting a box that Looks Good and doesn't stub people's toes.
So, last year, out of the blue, got contacted by a person in a housing development who was a friend-of-a-friend, asking for advice about what to do about the M3 (might have been an MY) he was going to get and how to get it charged.
I spent a fair amount of time doing Google searches.
First off: There are a ridiculous number of chargers and systems out there. Everything from 240 VAC outlets like one might find at an RV campground, complete with box, hasp lock, and underground burial of the feed wire, to full-fledged high-voltage, high-current DC chargers that one can buy, non-Tesla, but with Tesla connectors and the right software. The first one might cost one a grand to put in, depending upon the electrician; the latter might be up in the $20K range.
Given the OP's layout, I'd suggest talking to the HOA about putting in some 6" high, 4"x4" box with a lock on it and a NEMA connector in the 220 VAC, 40A range. The idea is to plant it next to the curb and use your mobile connector to charge the car. The advantage of this scheme, from the HOA's perspective, is with a little paint and roundy edges on the box, it would be lawnmower/pedestrian friendly and might be expandable to new tenants who have EVs as time goes on. A Tesla-specific Wall Connector is a bit big and cludgy for the purpose, in my opinion.
The guy with whom I collaborated with was planning to see if the HOA up in MA would go for a row of charging stations, each with individual metering. (As in, if it's in a parking lot, how does the billing get handled? That wouldn't be your problem, though. Especially if you go for the hasp lock, to keep moochers out.)
So, a couple of grand for an electrician to put in a bit of underground wiring and the box. And selecting a box that Looks Good and doesn't stub people's toes.
They seem to be a very conservative about their rules but we live in a liberal community which is funny to me lol. My brother in law is part of the HOA so he’s doing the talking for me so to speak.
There is one other in my community that has a model S and does the same thing I do but without a mat to lay down. Hopefully in the end, they give me reasonable options as more and more Teslas are popping up in my county.
I can charge at near by SCs and there’s even a ChargePoint at our community pool but I just wanted to charge to home.
roblab
Active Member
You'd have to remove some concrete to get the PVC under the sidewalk. Someone might not like having the curb cut up.
thesmokingman
Active Member
You could have the sidewalk cored but you'd need your HOA approval. Somehow I doubt they'd give you the ok for this. Looking at your sidewalk, that's a lot of concrete to either tunnel under or cut. Yea, I don't see HOA's taking this lightly.
Ha. Well, I live in a house with solar panels on top; given the vagaries of NJ's solar power incentives and sizing, I wasn't paying for electricity before we got the Teslas; in fact, the power company used to pay us for the excess we had each year, around 1 MW-hr. With two Teslas, that works out to be around 6000 miles of free transport.
But, even with that, residential electrical power is around $0.13/kW-hr in NJ. Power over at the Superchargers is roughly double that. And, given that you have your own electric meter, you'll get the lower rates if you use your own power.
I dunno: Running a Ditch Witch (little gas-powered thing, hand-pushed thing) to lay in weatherproof ROMEX in the grass both sides of the sidewalk, then a little digging to get under the sidewalk: The electricians who do this kind of thing aren't bothered by the occasional sidewalk in their path. You won't need conduit. Out back of my place, about 40' feet from the back of the house, there's one of those posts with a light in the top, controlled by a switch in the house. No conduit, just the weatherproof ROMEX out to the post from the house and, yes, that's code. The wires have to be deep enough so that somebody running a de-thatcher won't hit the wires, but that only needs to be a foot or two down. Heck, we had a garden on top of the ROMEX for years (until the deer got too bad), complete with my using a spade to turn over the soil every spring, and never got close to the wire.
Point is: We're not talking backhoes here. Just the same kind of technology used for putting down lawn sprinkler pipes. Which also go under sidewalks when they need to.
Now, the mounting pad for the box might be a little concrete. But this is why Building Permits and getting somebody who knows what they're doing, and what code is.
smatthew
Active Member
Nope - you can easily water jet it under the sidewalk. These are solved problems - we're just not in the industry so we don't know all the cool tool available.
BTW - even Home Depot sells a water jet kit that I've used to get pvc under sidewalks before..... it's really easy and like $6 in parts + PVC. Orbit Walkway Tunnel Kit 53333 - The Home Depot
@Floydsox I have experience as an HOA member/homeowner, as an HOA Board member, setting up Tesla charging in a home subject to an HOA (indoors though), and setting up Tesla charging outdoors unattached to any building (no HOA involved there). The intersectionality here feels right up my alley!
However I do NOT know your state's laws, your HOA's governing documents and rules, the size of your HOA, the details of your homeownership and common areas, or the general attitudes and sentiments of your Board members and fellow HOA members. And I'm not a relevant professional of any kind (not a lawyer or electrician or licensed contractor or professional HOA manager). So take this advice with those limitations in mind!
First, is your townhome legally a condo, or something else? E.g. do you wholly own the land underneath your townhome? How about the land in front of it prior to the sidewalk?
Second, what are your existing rights to that parking spot you want to charge from? Is it land you own? Is its use deeded to you? Is it exclusive use common area? Is it assigned by the HOA but could be reassigned under certain circumstances out of your control? Or is it just normal shared common area, and any HOA member may park there?
FIRST THINGS FIRST, try to approach this from the perspective of working with the HOA to find a solution. It's fine and good to note any right-to-charge law of course, that's highly relevant, but do NOT start off beating people over the head with it or start throwing out legal threats/demands from day 1. If you do that people will naturally want to push back or at least will be resentful and not do their best to truly help. Hopefully your Board is reasonable and will approach this from the perspective of wanting to find a solution, and not simply wanting to block any changes. If they have the latter attitude then you may have no choice but to force them into complying with the law (if that law is strong enough and actually applies in your case).
Whether that parking spot is permanently yours in some fashion or not is a BIG difference here. Apologies if you clarified that already and I missed it.
If the parking spot is just a shared HOA parking that other homeowners may use, then your Board should NOT allow you as an individual homeowner to install any permanent charging facilities for it. I'm not saying for sure they can't or won't, just that they shouldn't! If the parking is all shared then the HOA should setup their own EV charging stations, powered from HOA common area power, and with a means for tracking usage so that homeowners can be charged proportionate to their usage. Equipment and even fully managed services exist for this for HOAs and condo buildings, though they won't be anywhere near as cheap as deploying a bunch of Tesla wall connectors of course. Also they will and should use J1772 as the "universal" standard. (Yes I'm aware that Tesla wall connectors support J1772 via 3rd party adapters, but I would strongly recommend HOAs stick with J1772, and any EVSE with large scale commercial management will be J1772 I think.)
Now let's say it's truly your parking spot. It's deeded or exclusive use common area or similarly assigned in a permanent, irrevocable fashion, preferably in a manner that makes it inseparable from your townhome/unit. If it's permanently yours but separable that's probably fine too, but could make things awkward down the line.
I'll start with your current setup of running a mobile charger cable across the lawn and sidewalk, using a ramp to cover the sidewalk crossing. First, I believe (not an expert or lawyer) that cable ramps can be ADA-compliant, at least in some circumstances and settings, though I've no idea if your particular ramp can meet ADA requirements or not. (I definitely agree with others that covering the entire sidewalk is a good idea.) HOWEVER, even if a ramp cover could be ADA compliant, that is NOT ENOGH to make it long-term tenable for an HOA for regular unattended charging!
Any solution approved or implemented by the HOA should scale up to the entire HOA. If it won't scale up well, it won't be equitable among all the homeowners. Now imagine a future where almost everyone has an EV and puts out those ramps to cover their charging cables, one for almost every parking spot...I'm sure most homeowners would not like that. I sure wouldn't! Not to mention such ramps are generally meant to be temporary. It's too easy for them to get kicked around, not be taped down properly, etc for them to be a good permanent solution.
If a ramp cover over an EV charge cable can meet ADA requirements then it seems reasonable to me, even as an HOA Board member, to allow it temporarily until a better, more permanent solution can be decided on and approved. However no promises your Board will see it the same way!
So, if the parking spots are individually deeded/allocated in a permanent fashion, AND they are all reasonably close to their assigned homes such that it's straightforward to run power from the assigned home...what might a good solution look like? Well, as others have said there is a very standard, common physical design for this: An EVSE on a pole. Just like you've surely seen in many commercial installations.
Electrical circuit wiring to reach an outdoor EVSE must be in conduit above or below ground, or be direct burial rated and buried sufficiently deep below ground (if that's allowed at all). Any place where it crosses a path that pedestrians might walk, it must be grade-separated from their path. In other words, either buried or aerial. Aerial can be cheap and easy and potentially more accessible for maintenance or rerouting but is generally considered ugly and industrial. I think it's unlikely the HOA would approve of typical aerial cable structures reaching out to every parking spot. So that will mean going underground. Thankfully burying some cables really isn't a big deal at all. Neither is running them below the concrete sidewalk a big deal either. Just takes some money and time. And permits! Everything in an HOA managed place had better be done to code and with permits.
Assuming that the lawn and sidewalk are HOA-managed common area, I think the HOA Board could reasonably decide that they themselves want to handle all such EVSE installations to ensure uniformity and compliance with any requirements (whether legal/code requirements or their own requirements).
Or potentially they could decide to let individual homeowners (e.g. you) install EVSEs onto common area. By default such a thing would probably need to go through some kind of "architectural review" or similar, with a generic process and requirements spelled out in the HOA's governing documents. The Board would probably also want to come up with their own set of rules specific to these EVSE installations for uniformity, maintainability, and ease of access, beyond building/electrical code requirements. For example, they might reasonably mandate a common aesthetic, height, etc of pole, and also its exact placement relative to the parking spot. Maybe they would mandate a specific EVSE or limited set of EVSEs. That's probably an okay limitation from a legal perspective (just guessing - I don't know your state's laws), so long as they maintain their approved equipment list to cover all reasonable needs.
The Board might also take a middle ground in terms of installation and maintenance responsibility, e.g. the HOA sets up the circuit run and mounting pole, but you get to provide your own UL-compliant EVSE of your choosing.
Btw it seems possible - I have no idea if this is actually the case - that your existing sidewalk might not be wide enough to meet some code or accessibility requirement with EVSE poles placed on one side. Not the end of the world if that's the case, but would require widening the sidewalk, turning this into a significantly bigger project.
There's more to this than what I've covered but hopefully this gives you some perspective and ideas!
One more thing I want to ask/mention...does your townhome gets its electrical supply directly from the utility, or do you get it from an HOA-managed distribution point? If the latter, does the existing supply and breaker for each home already have enough headroom for reasonable EV charging speeds, or are upgrades needed? You can see where this is going. If your power comes directly from infrastructure managed by your electrical company/utility, then any service upgrade you or other townhome owners might need for EV charging should just be between you and the utility company. However, if your electricity comes from a common HOA panel, even if it's individually metered for each home,, then the HOA itself might need to upgrade its supply and distribution someday to keep up with expanding EV charging. Ideally the HOA Board will consider that issue now and keep it in mind with any solution they approve. (Not saying they need to proactively upgrade their power service, just that they should start planning for it, and not approve anything that would be infeasible to provide power for!)
However I do NOT know your state's laws, your HOA's governing documents and rules, the size of your HOA, the details of your homeownership and common areas, or the general attitudes and sentiments of your Board members and fellow HOA members. And I'm not a relevant professional of any kind (not a lawyer or electrician or licensed contractor or professional HOA manager). So take this advice with those limitations in mind!
First, is your townhome legally a condo, or something else? E.g. do you wholly own the land underneath your townhome? How about the land in front of it prior to the sidewalk?
Second, what are your existing rights to that parking spot you want to charge from? Is it land you own? Is its use deeded to you? Is it exclusive use common area? Is it assigned by the HOA but could be reassigned under certain circumstances out of your control? Or is it just normal shared common area, and any HOA member may park there?
FIRST THINGS FIRST, try to approach this from the perspective of working with the HOA to find a solution. It's fine and good to note any right-to-charge law of course, that's highly relevant, but do NOT start off beating people over the head with it or start throwing out legal threats/demands from day 1. If you do that people will naturally want to push back or at least will be resentful and not do their best to truly help. Hopefully your Board is reasonable and will approach this from the perspective of wanting to find a solution, and not simply wanting to block any changes. If they have the latter attitude then you may have no choice but to force them into complying with the law (if that law is strong enough and actually applies in your case).
Whether that parking spot is permanently yours in some fashion or not is a BIG difference here. Apologies if you clarified that already and I missed it.
If the parking spot is just a shared HOA parking that other homeowners may use, then your Board should NOT allow you as an individual homeowner to install any permanent charging facilities for it. I'm not saying for sure they can't or won't, just that they shouldn't! If the parking is all shared then the HOA should setup their own EV charging stations, powered from HOA common area power, and with a means for tracking usage so that homeowners can be charged proportionate to their usage. Equipment and even fully managed services exist for this for HOAs and condo buildings, though they won't be anywhere near as cheap as deploying a bunch of Tesla wall connectors of course. Also they will and should use J1772 as the "universal" standard. (Yes I'm aware that Tesla wall connectors support J1772 via 3rd party adapters, but I would strongly recommend HOAs stick with J1772, and any EVSE with large scale commercial management will be J1772 I think.)
Now let's say it's truly your parking spot. It's deeded or exclusive use common area or similarly assigned in a permanent, irrevocable fashion, preferably in a manner that makes it inseparable from your townhome/unit. If it's permanently yours but separable that's probably fine too, but could make things awkward down the line.
I'll start with your current setup of running a mobile charger cable across the lawn and sidewalk, using a ramp to cover the sidewalk crossing. First, I believe (not an expert or lawyer) that cable ramps can be ADA-compliant, at least in some circumstances and settings, though I've no idea if your particular ramp can meet ADA requirements or not. (I definitely agree with others that covering the entire sidewalk is a good idea.) HOWEVER, even if a ramp cover could be ADA compliant, that is NOT ENOGH to make it long-term tenable for an HOA for regular unattended charging!
Any solution approved or implemented by the HOA should scale up to the entire HOA. If it won't scale up well, it won't be equitable among all the homeowners. Now imagine a future where almost everyone has an EV and puts out those ramps to cover their charging cables, one for almost every parking spot...I'm sure most homeowners would not like that. I sure wouldn't! Not to mention such ramps are generally meant to be temporary. It's too easy for them to get kicked around, not be taped down properly, etc for them to be a good permanent solution.
If a ramp cover over an EV charge cable can meet ADA requirements then it seems reasonable to me, even as an HOA Board member, to allow it temporarily until a better, more permanent solution can be decided on and approved. However no promises your Board will see it the same way!
So, if the parking spots are individually deeded/allocated in a permanent fashion, AND they are all reasonably close to their assigned homes such that it's straightforward to run power from the assigned home...what might a good solution look like? Well, as others have said there is a very standard, common physical design for this: An EVSE on a pole. Just like you've surely seen in many commercial installations.
Electrical circuit wiring to reach an outdoor EVSE must be in conduit above or below ground, or be direct burial rated and buried sufficiently deep below ground (if that's allowed at all). Any place where it crosses a path that pedestrians might walk, it must be grade-separated from their path. In other words, either buried or aerial. Aerial can be cheap and easy and potentially more accessible for maintenance or rerouting but is generally considered ugly and industrial. I think it's unlikely the HOA would approve of typical aerial cable structures reaching out to every parking spot. So that will mean going underground. Thankfully burying some cables really isn't a big deal at all. Neither is running them below the concrete sidewalk a big deal either. Just takes some money and time. And permits! Everything in an HOA managed place had better be done to code and with permits.
Assuming that the lawn and sidewalk are HOA-managed common area, I think the HOA Board could reasonably decide that they themselves want to handle all such EVSE installations to ensure uniformity and compliance with any requirements (whether legal/code requirements or their own requirements).
Or potentially they could decide to let individual homeowners (e.g. you) install EVSEs onto common area. By default such a thing would probably need to go through some kind of "architectural review" or similar, with a generic process and requirements spelled out in the HOA's governing documents. The Board would probably also want to come up with their own set of rules specific to these EVSE installations for uniformity, maintainability, and ease of access, beyond building/electrical code requirements. For example, they might reasonably mandate a common aesthetic, height, etc of pole, and also its exact placement relative to the parking spot. Maybe they would mandate a specific EVSE or limited set of EVSEs. That's probably an okay limitation from a legal perspective (just guessing - I don't know your state's laws), so long as they maintain their approved equipment list to cover all reasonable needs.
The Board might also take a middle ground in terms of installation and maintenance responsibility, e.g. the HOA sets up the circuit run and mounting pole, but you get to provide your own UL-compliant EVSE of your choosing.
Btw it seems possible - I have no idea if this is actually the case - that your existing sidewalk might not be wide enough to meet some code or accessibility requirement with EVSE poles placed on one side. Not the end of the world if that's the case, but would require widening the sidewalk, turning this into a significantly bigger project.
There's more to this than what I've covered but hopefully this gives you some perspective and ideas!
One more thing I want to ask/mention...does your townhome gets its electrical supply directly from the utility, or do you get it from an HOA-managed distribution point? If the latter, does the existing supply and breaker for each home already have enough headroom for reasonable EV charging speeds, or are upgrades needed? You can see where this is going. If your power comes directly from infrastructure managed by your electrical company/utility, then any service upgrade you or other townhome owners might need for EV charging should just be between you and the utility company. However, if your electricity comes from a common HOA panel, even if it's individually metered for each home,, then the HOA itself might need to upgrade its supply and distribution someday to keep up with expanding EV charging. Ideally the HOA Board will consider that issue now and keep it in mind with any solution they approve. (Not saying they need to proactively upgrade their power service, just that they should start planning for it, and not approve anything that would be infeasible to provide power for!)
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