Finding an installer, advice sought

[IamGaryGnu]

Hi all,
My local electrician (sizable company) quoted me about $2k for the wall charger install.
that's for roughly a 125 foot run for 60 amp service, I THINK 00 gauge wire (double ought?) and it has to run from the circuit panel on the far side of the house, into the attic, across, and back down to the garage.
There is also the $200 load shed module for the generator, and the permit. I am supplying the wall charger.
This seems high to me, but they have also done installations for folks for far less when the panel or subpanel was closer.
I also just reached out to two electrician's from the Tesla sight - from the forums it seems the Tesla electricians can be a lot more money...or a lot less.
If anyone has any ideas or suggestions I welcome them.
I have a buddy who had the NEMA installed and uses the mobile charger - I didn't want to go that route. I acknowledge with the NEMA, I could also use other chargers if I later get non Teslas.
thanks for any help!

 

[DerbyDave]

The Tesla Wall Connector specifies 6 gauge or better on a 60A circuit with 48A maximum draw. My installation was pretty much the same, but across the house thru the basement, up to the attic to get into garage ceiling, across, and down the wall. Included in electrician's proposal was 125 feet of wire. $500 for labor and $200 for materials, not including wall connector. Took 2 electricians about 2 hours.

 

[Ken_Y]

125 foot is pretty far. I think that's about right. I paid $2100 to update my electrical panel to upgrade it to 200A from 100A and ran about a 20 foot run across my garage for Tesla wall charger. He also helped ground my home in 2 locations with one at the water service line which is on the other side of the house.

 

[Rocky_H]

that's for roughly a 125 foot run for 60 amp service, I THINK 00 gauge wire (double ought?)

Wow, that is a huge gauge. That must be aluminum then, right? Instead of copper? That's the only reason anyone would use such huge wire gauge for a 60A circuit. That still doesn't make any sense to me. I just looked at the rated amp tables for types of wire:

Cerrowire Resources - Ampacity Charts

Ampacity is the maximum current that a conductor can carry continuously under the conditions of use without exceeding its temperature rating. Cerrowire's ampacity chart helps calculate the load requirement for a circuit.

www.cerrowire.com

With aluminum wire, a 60A circuit would only need 4 gauge. The 00 gauge aluminum is rated for 135A! Even if you're talking trying to compensate for voltage drop on a long distance run, that's a lot of overkill.

Aluminum is noticeably cheaper than copper, so for a 125 foot distance, that can be some significant cost saving. That is somewhat OK, only if certain other precautions are taken with it. The connection lugs in the wall connector are not rated for allowing to put aluminum wire directly into it. So if this is going to do most of the distance with aluminum wire, then that needs to connect into a small junction box of some kind with lugs that ARE rated for aluminum connections. Then from that, you can do the final segment to the wall connector with thinner copper wire: something like 6 gauge or 4 gauge, depending if it's individual wires in conduit or Romex cable in a wall.

There is also the $200 load shed module for the generator,

For the what? You have a whole-house generator? I'm not familiar with what this part is or what it would be doing.

 

[ucmndd]

With aluminum wire, a 60A circuit would only need 4 gauge. The 00 gauge aluminum is rated for 135A! Even if you're talking trying to compensate for voltage drop on a long distance run, that's a lot of overkill.

It sounds to me (though I admit I'm speculating based on the information provided) like the quote is proposing an aluminum wire run to a new ~100 amp sub panel in the garage, and then creating a circuit from there for the wall connector. That's what I'd do if it were me. Little bit more up front is worth it for the flexibility down the road.

For the what? You have a whole-house generator? I'm not familiar with what this part is or what it would be doing.

It's basically a smart circuit breaker that can detect when the generator is running and shed non-essential loads to keep from overloading it.

 

[nwdiver]

I agree that $2k sounds reasonable especially if this is to a 100A sub panel.

 

[airborne spoon]

That is way too much, also you only need 4 AWG wire for that run. Also 4 gauge costs $1.70 a foot and the ground wire is $0.84 per foot.

So that's $551 in wire and that is for 130 ft as a buffer. Also electricians can get wire cheaper than retail, sometimes as much as 40% less than retail but at a minimum they get it at 10% less. Which means it would cost them no more than $500 in wire, a 60A breaker is like $20. conduit I'm using PVC-40 for my example is $1 per foot so giving you extra again that's $130.

So in all you're looking at About $700 in parts, anything after that is labor and depending on where you live the price fluctuates for that.


When I did a HPWC install at my moms house it was about 55ft and it cost me about $250 in all parts, but i get a gnarly discount at home depot. I did the install in a few hours with a few beer breaks.

 

[Wratran]

I did a similar run to the post above…around $250 in parts…using aluminum wire.

$2000 range is extremely high

 

[JimmyB]

Going purely from my own experience this sounds not unreasonable. My cost was rather more than that, for a roughly 200ft cable run coming from the panel in the front basement corner of the house, up the exterior, over and across the roof (avoiding the solar panels so at right angles, not diagonally), down the opposite back corner, along the yard wall and terminating in a new 100A subpanel in the garage.

I get a total of $3k back in DC and federal tax credits, though, so it’s not all bad. And charging at 80A, even at only 208V thanks to our antiquated service, is great.

 

[nwdiver]

even at only 208V thanks to our antiquated service, is great.

Wow. A LOT of voltage drop or 2 legs off of 3 phase?

 

[JimmyB]

Wow. A LOT of voltage drop or 2 legs off of 3 phase?

Alas the latter. Actual voltage as reported by the car is a few less but not much.

Neglected to add that my install also included permitting, and painting the cable to match the house when finished - both required by the District.