Thanks for all the replies. Is there an easy way to identify if I have 14 or 12 gauge wire running to this outlet?
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Help to understand home charging options?
- Thread starter Litigate28
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ucmndd
Well-Known Member
Easiest way would be to turn off the breaker (make sure you've got the right one and the circuit is actually dead before you proceed), then unscrew the cover plate and one of the receptacles to get a look at the wire behind it. You may be able to see markings on the wire, but if not, post a pic of it here - 14 vs 12 ga is pretty easy to distinguish by sight.
Oh, right, that's the part I was forgetting. Romex is generally used for in-wall, so yeah, that would have to be 12 gauge for the 20A circuits. So in other words, "he who shall not be named" was assuming illegal installation when he said "more than likely" 14 gauge on a 20A circuit, saying it would be wrong.
Thank you for the reminder.
So to move away from the misdirection and arguments.
Everyone is starting in the middle of the equation and missing the real question.
the real question is what is the distance of your daily commute? with that information, you will find out how much charging that you need. You can find the charge rates of different plugs at the Tesla Adapter page. The 5-15 adapter, which is a standard AC receptacle as you showed, can support 3 miles per hour. And if you plug in for 10 hours, that's 30 miles recharge overnight. If you can be plugged in longer, then you can charge more, up to about 40 miles for around 13 hours. .
If your commute is about 50 miles, then the 5-15 isn't probably going to be enough. The 5-20 can take you to about 52 miles in 13 hours.
(while I believe this was part of the contention, it is possible that a quad outlet could be replaced with a single 5-20 may replace it, but check with a qualified electrician before doing so)
If 50 miles isn't enough, then 14-30 or 14-50 or going to be your options, but are indeed much more expensive to install. And in some older units, may be near impossible to implement.
If the 5-15 or 5-120 don't solve your options, seeing that you are in LA, you have a multitude of options.
Now, these aren't exclusive options. It is very possible that you charge on a 5-15 during the week, slowly dropping over the week and then top-off at a Supercharger when needed. This is absolutely fine and won't damage the battery.
Also, while initial few miles carry a little energy penalty, if you are travelling over 25 miles one-way, so, speed is a factor that you can control. The record, AFAIK, for the Model 3 is about 600 miles at 40 mph. so slowing down can give you a lot more range. Going 75 mph will result in utilization worse than the EPA numbers, which are at about 60 or so mph. Even dropping to 55 can be really advantageous.
In other words, the calculation starts from how much do you need rather than how much can I get. My wife charging on 120V 15A and only plugs in once or twice a week.
That 5-15 plug may be all you need. But I would suggest having a licensed Electrician check it out to make sure that it hasn't badly aged, possibly replacing the plug and breaker.
Everyone is starting in the middle of the equation and missing the real question.
the real question is what is the distance of your daily commute? with that information, you will find out how much charging that you need. You can find the charge rates of different plugs at the Tesla Adapter page. The 5-15 adapter, which is a standard AC receptacle as you showed, can support 3 miles per hour. And if you plug in for 10 hours, that's 30 miles recharge overnight. If you can be plugged in longer, then you can charge more, up to about 40 miles for around 13 hours. .
If your commute is about 50 miles, then the 5-15 isn't probably going to be enough. The 5-20 can take you to about 52 miles in 13 hours.
(while I believe this was part of the contention, it is possible that a quad outlet could be replaced with a single 5-20 may replace it, but check with a qualified electrician before doing so)
If 50 miles isn't enough, then 14-30 or 14-50 or going to be your options, but are indeed much more expensive to install. And in some older units, may be near impossible to implement.
If the 5-15 or 5-120 don't solve your options, seeing that you are in LA, you have a multitude of options.
- Charge at work
- Charge at a J-1772 very near work or home. See PlugShare.com for locations
- Charge at Supercharger
Now, these aren't exclusive options. It is very possible that you charge on a 5-15 during the week, slowly dropping over the week and then top-off at a Supercharger when needed. This is absolutely fine and won't damage the battery.
Also, while initial few miles carry a little energy penalty, if you are travelling over 25 miles one-way, so, speed is a factor that you can control. The record, AFAIK, for the Model 3 is about 600 miles at 40 mph. so slowing down can give you a lot more range. Going 75 mph will result in utilization worse than the EPA numbers, which are at about 60 or so mph. Even dropping to 55 can be really advantageous.
In other words, the calculation starts from how much do you need rather than how much can I get. My wife charging on 120V 15A and only plugs in once or twice a week.
That 5-15 plug may be all you need. But I would suggest having a licensed Electrician check it out to make sure that it hasn't badly aged, possibly replacing the plug and breaker.
I live in an old house; updating the panel to anything beyond the existing 100 amp panel would have required replacing the service feed, relocating the meter to outside, and replacing the panel.
I was lucky and had an existing single-purpose outlet outside that was on a 12 gauge feed.
I had an electrician replace 120v/20a breaker with a 240 breaker and replace the plug outside with a single nema 6-20 plug (I presume he also wrapped the was-neutral-is-now-hot wire with tape to mark it as hot.
My car (tesla S 90D) now charges at 10-11 miles an hour (in the summer without other loads).
I was lucky and had an existing single-purpose outlet outside that was on a 12 gauge feed.
I had an electrician replace 120v/20a breaker with a 240 breaker and replace the plug outside with a single nema 6-20 plug (I presume he also wrapped the was-neutral-is-now-hot wire with tape to mark it as hot.
My car (tesla S 90D) now charges at 10-11 miles an hour (in the summer without other loads).
Yes I could live off 5-15, I'm just trying to see if I can do 5-20 or even 6-20 for minimal cost, why not...
Thanks. I could not tell by sight, so here are the pictures. Can you folks tell if I have 12 or 14 gauge here? Also seems there is an unused set of wires, so not sure what that is about.
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Bill Price
Active Member
No argument here.
This is not pure speculation.......95% or more of present day and past built houses were wired with romex and common 15 amp circuits would indeed indicate 14 gauge romex WAS used.
I feel like I'm hitting my head against the wall trying to make you understand why this statement is false. Let me try once more.....
A 15A outlet is rated for 15A, with a 20A pass through. That is to say that the 20A circuit is in continuance throughout the circuit, however the receptacle itself (the contacts) are rated for 15A continuously. Any single appliance with a 15A plug will not normally draw more than 80% of 15A, or 12A. The total circuit draw (multiple appliances - same circuit) can be 20A before the breaker trips.
A 20A breaker used with 12awg wire can feed multiple 15A outlets, one example is the kitchen. The reasoning is so that today's demanding appliances, which draw more current, can be used with a 20A breaker without the worry of nuisance tripping. If more than a total of 20A were to be drawn from the circuit, the breaker will trip.
It should be noted that any circuit that is intended to be 20A must use a 20A receptacle.
If the appliance were using 15A, it will be safe with the 20A breaker ( @ 80% = 16A). If it were to short, it will trip the 20A breaker just as it would a 15A breaker. A 15A receptacle can take 20A for a short time with no problem. The receptacle is overrated, otherwise it would blow up upon a short. A short circuit in actuality can be hundreds of amps in a very short duration. The breaker and receptacle are rated as "Time overcurrent" meaning it can take a lot of current for extremely short durations, and will trip on lesser currents that occur for a longer time.
An example one can relate to: Joe plugs in two electric heaters in his family room. Everything works fine until 20-100 seconds later the breaker trips! Joe overloaded his 20A circuit, by drawing 40A! The breaker will allow this overload for a short time. If the overload were bigger, say 60A the breaker would trip faster from 10-35 seconds. If the trip was due to a direct short, the breaker will trip Immediately. Breakers actually have a "Load characteristic curve" that you can tell when it will trip in time vs current.
I'm feeling that having to keep responding to you.
That's kind of yes and no. In reality the internals of most 5-15 and 5-20 outlets from a manufacturer are built the same for parts and manufacturing simplification, so they are both physically capable of the same 20A level. But the different face plates, one with the T-shaped slot and one without, is a compliance mechanism to enforce if needed that the pins of a 5-20 specific plug will not fit into a lower 5-15 outlet. So, if a 15A circuit is being wired, it is required to use only 5-15 outlets to enforce that compatibility.
Yes--code agrees.
Let me see if maybe we are misunderstanding a little. Are you saying a 20A circuit needs to have at least one 20A outlet on it? That may possibly be correct--I'm not sure. But if you are repeating what I think you've been saying before--that 20A circuits must have only 20A outlets, then no, that is false. NEC very clearly spells out that 20A circuits are specifically allowed to have a mix of 15 and 20 amp outlets. So it's like a one way indicator. If you see a 5-20 outlet, yes, that does mean it is a 20A circuit. But if you see a 5-15 outlet, it might be a 15A circuit or a 20A circuit. You would have to check the wiring and breaker to find out.
And no problem with your remaining two paragraphs; we know how breakers work.
ucmndd
Well-Known Member
I'm going to resist the temptation to go tit for tat on this post because you seem like a special sort of dude, but:
Which might be relevant if the pictures provided by the OP showed a 15 amp breaker. They don't - they show a 20 amp breaker. Everything else about wire size and how things were installed and whether or not this was always a 20 amp circuit vs a 15 and if it was installed incorrectly is pure and complete speculation.
Which might be relevant if the pictures provided by the OP showed a 15 amp breaker. They don't - they show a 20 amp breaker. Everything else about wire size and how things were installed and whether or not this was always a 20 amp circuit vs a 15 and if it was installed incorrectly is pure and complete speculation.
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ucmndd
Well-Known Member
Hard to be 100% certain from the picture, but that looks like 12awg wire to me. This might help you with further identification:
How to Use Pocket Change to Determine Wire Sizes
Bill Price
Active Member
And I would concur as well.......from the picture it looks to be 12 gauge.....but I doubt anyone could say with 100% certainty that it is 12 just from a picture.
Crap, looks like I have to take it apart again to check. Thanks for the tips and using pocket change guide.
Bill Price
Active Member
One more thing you need to consider when you make a hurried statement such as this. Your assertion that "if it was installed is pure and complete speculation" is pure and complete speculation on YOUR part. Have you considered that the occupant of the house BEFORE the OP lived there might possibly have been overloading that particular circuit and having his 15 amp breaker trip all the time? Do you think it might be possible (wrong as it might be) that he may have thought, "gee, I am having nuisance tripping of this breaker all the time. I know it's not over amping because nothing is getting hot so I'm going to change it out to the next size breaker so it won't trip all the time." Of course it wasn't getting hot because the breaker was doing it's job by interrupting the flow of electricity BEFORE things got hot. Not saying this is what we have before us, just saying that this is just one possible reason for having a 20 amp breaker on a supposedly 15 amp circuit.
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You are really trying our patience. It's not a hurried statement at all, and you are playing terrible rhetorical games with this. Read it carefully, and I'll parse it to make it easier:
He was simply stating that the basic fact we had is only what was shown in the pictures, which was just a 20A breaker and a 5-15 outlet. Everything else would be unknown.
That part that I snipped in the [...] was your flights of fancy and speculation that this was an illegal installation with code violating undersized wiring or an illegally substituted wrong size breaker, which would not be normal assumptions and there wasn't evidence for.
So then you made this accusation:
Besides your misquoting what he said, the "assertion" that he made was not speculation at all. He just said you were guessing. You were making guesses about wire size. You were making guesses that a previous homeowner might have hacked something non-standard. And for you to try to reverse that and accuse him of speculating is just gaslighting of the worst sort.
To the OP - the answer to your question is: No, you cannot wire a 15-20R to the circuit connected to any of the pictured breakers. These breakers, assuming they are installed correctly, will be wired, most probably, with No. 12 NM-B. The 14-50R requires larger wire (No. 6). To install a 14-50R a new 50A breaker would have to be installed (possibly in a sub panel if your panel has no blank slots), a length of No. 6 NM-B, SE or No. 8 THWN (in conduit) would have to be run and the receptacle installed.
Now to try to clear some of the noise in this thread:
The code now requires 20 amp branch circuits to several specific places in a house. This is because more things are being plugged in these days than formerly. I don't have the codebook with me so I can't check but I am beginning to wonder if all branch circuits are now required to be 20 amp. They are if you are working for me but I'm not sure the NEC now requires that. In any case the fact that your panel shows several 20 A breakers suggests that this is the case for your house/apartment. Are there any 15's in your panel?
It is perfectly allowable to install a mix of 15 A and 20 amp outlets on a 20 A branch circuit but it is seldom done. What is most common is to wire a string of duplex (2 port) and quad (4 port - what's in your picture) receptacles to a single branch circuit. The code does not limit the number of outlets on a branch circuit but does specify that no more than 0.8*20 = 16 amps of continuous load (as if the average homeowner would be aware of this) should be plugged in. More on this in a bit.
A 20 amp branch circuit requires No. 12 wire if the wire is rated 60 °C as is Romex, the most commonly used wire for residential work. The probability that someone snuck into your house, removed 15 amp breakers and installed 20 amp breakers in their place is vanishingly small so there is really no need for you to check the wire size. Should you want to anyway the best bet would probably be to remove the cover from your electrical panel and have a look. As I said, you most probably are wired with Romex. 12/2 Romex usually has a yellow jacket. 14/2 Romex (used in 15 A circuits) usually has a white jacket. The tricky bit here is to actually see the jacket which is often terminated outside the panel box but quite often some of it can be spotted inside. Of course the size of the wire can be observed. If your panel has 15A breakers as well as 20A clearly the wires going to the 20A breakers should be larger in diameter (0.081" as opposed to 0.064"). As a desperation measure you could go to a home improvement store or hardware store and buy a foot of 12/2 and a foot of 14/2 and take them home for visual comparison.
If the outlet is loose WRT to pins or wires connected to the terminals replace it (former case) or tighten the wires. Get a Non Contact Voltage tester at a home improvement store, learn how to use it, flip the breaker for the circuit you want to repair and use the NCV to verify that it is dead before you pull the outlet out of the box. But it looks as if a new cover plate may take care of your problem. Easily had for a couple of bucks at a home improvement store.
As promised above: you should not draw more than 80% of the breaker's rated capacity (unless it's a special breaker) if the load can last for more than two hours and, of course, charging at less than 2 kW will take longer than 2 hours. Tesla is well aware of this. While in a modern house there is probably going to be a 20 amp breaker behind a NEMA 5-15R there are lots and lots of older houses out there which are going to have 15 Amp circuits. To handle these within the intention of the code the 5-15P adapter should tell the charger to limit its draw to 0.8*15 = 12 A (this was mentioned in an earlier post). You can verify that this is the case by looking at the screen in the car which should show 12/12 Amps when charging with this adapter.
The blinking light on the UMC probably means that the adapter is connected to neutral but not ground or ground but not neutral. IOW a wire is loose at the outlet or in the plug. While at the home improvement store get yourself a "bug"
https://www.amazon.com/Receptacle-T...jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==
This will show you if the receptacle wiring is OK. Check all 4. If any is bad replace that outlet pair. Do you get the blinking light in all 4 of the receptacles or just one? If you get it in all 4 you might want to check the UMC (with an extension cord plugged into another outlet).
In summary: you are fine. There are some people here who think they know a lot more about electricity than they evidently do. Don't let them scare you. But I should also note that I do know enough about it to know that I don't know everything so if you have any discomfort with any of this get a professional electrician in.
Now to try to clear some of the noise in this thread:
The code now requires 20 amp branch circuits to several specific places in a house. This is because more things are being plugged in these days than formerly. I don't have the codebook with me so I can't check but I am beginning to wonder if all branch circuits are now required to be 20 amp. They are if you are working for me but I'm not sure the NEC now requires that. In any case the fact that your panel shows several 20 A breakers suggests that this is the case for your house/apartment. Are there any 15's in your panel?
It is perfectly allowable to install a mix of 15 A and 20 amp outlets on a 20 A branch circuit but it is seldom done. What is most common is to wire a string of duplex (2 port) and quad (4 port - what's in your picture) receptacles to a single branch circuit. The code does not limit the number of outlets on a branch circuit but does specify that no more than 0.8*20 = 16 amps of continuous load (as if the average homeowner would be aware of this) should be plugged in. More on this in a bit.
A 20 amp branch circuit requires No. 12 wire if the wire is rated 60 °C as is Romex, the most commonly used wire for residential work. The probability that someone snuck into your house, removed 15 amp breakers and installed 20 amp breakers in their place is vanishingly small so there is really no need for you to check the wire size. Should you want to anyway the best bet would probably be to remove the cover from your electrical panel and have a look. As I said, you most probably are wired with Romex. 12/2 Romex usually has a yellow jacket. 14/2 Romex (used in 15 A circuits) usually has a white jacket. The tricky bit here is to actually see the jacket which is often terminated outside the panel box but quite often some of it can be spotted inside. Of course the size of the wire can be observed. If your panel has 15A breakers as well as 20A clearly the wires going to the 20A breakers should be larger in diameter (0.081" as opposed to 0.064"). As a desperation measure you could go to a home improvement store or hardware store and buy a foot of 12/2 and a foot of 14/2 and take them home for visual comparison.
If the outlet is loose WRT to pins or wires connected to the terminals replace it (former case) or tighten the wires. Get a Non Contact Voltage tester at a home improvement store, learn how to use it, flip the breaker for the circuit you want to repair and use the NCV to verify that it is dead before you pull the outlet out of the box. But it looks as if a new cover plate may take care of your problem. Easily had for a couple of bucks at a home improvement store.
As promised above: you should not draw more than 80% of the breaker's rated capacity (unless it's a special breaker) if the load can last for more than two hours and, of course, charging at less than 2 kW will take longer than 2 hours. Tesla is well aware of this. While in a modern house there is probably going to be a 20 amp breaker behind a NEMA 5-15R there are lots and lots of older houses out there which are going to have 15 Amp circuits. To handle these within the intention of the code the 5-15P adapter should tell the charger to limit its draw to 0.8*15 = 12 A (this was mentioned in an earlier post). You can verify that this is the case by looking at the screen in the car which should show 12/12 Amps when charging with this adapter.
The blinking light on the UMC probably means that the adapter is connected to neutral but not ground or ground but not neutral. IOW a wire is loose at the outlet or in the plug. While at the home improvement store get yourself a "bug"
https://www.amazon.com/Receptacle-T...jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==
This will show you if the receptacle wiring is OK. Check all 4. If any is bad replace that outlet pair. Do you get the blinking light in all 4 of the receptacles or just one? If you get it in all 4 you might want to check the UMC (with an extension cord plugged into another outlet).
In summary: you are fine. There are some people here who think they know a lot more about electricity than they evidently do. Don't let them scare you. But I should also note that I do know enough about it to know that I don't know everything so if you have any discomfort with any of this get a professional electrician in.
I am not an electrician and don't know my way around code at all. I have a working understanding of screw drivers and soldering irons and know which end of (most) tools to hold.
My observations about the pictures are as follows:
One of the receptacle needs to be shimmed to properly fit in that box; a (sober) electrician likely wouldn't have left it like that (though most other tradespeople probably would have). The other of those outlets does not appear to be grounded; the charging box would refuse to work on that one and if you've got a gen1 charger you may not be able to get the plug firmly seated in the wobbly plug. I'm also not entirely sure but it looks like the wires were not looped around the screw posts in the way I always do it.
You're parking the car in a garage in a mild climate? If so, you can probably get by with a mixture of home charging on a nema 5-15 and bonus charging every once in a while to keep topped up.
Your options are (and I am some random guy on the internet who, for all you know, has accidentally burned down several houses with bad electrical judgement):
My observations about the pictures are as follows:
One of the receptacle needs to be shimmed to properly fit in that box; a (sober) electrician likely wouldn't have left it like that (though most other tradespeople probably would have). The other of those outlets does not appear to be grounded; the charging box would refuse to work on that one and if you've got a gen1 charger you may not be able to get the plug firmly seated in the wobbly plug. I'm also not entirely sure but it looks like the wires were not looped around the screw posts in the way I always do it.
You're parking the car in a garage in a mild climate? If so, you can probably get by with a mixture of home charging on a nema 5-15 and bonus charging every once in a while to keep topped up.
Your options are (and I am some random guy on the internet who, for all you know, has accidentally burned down several houses with bad electrical judgement):
- don't use those plugs
- fix those plugs such that they're properly installed nema 5-15 outlets
- have someone inspect the rest of that circuit to make sure it is properly done; update one of the receptacles to be a nema 5-20 and don't use the others when charging. You'll need to buy a new adapter to get your charger to run at 16 amp. Try to charge from the one closest to the circuit breaker.
- have someone inspect the rest of that circuit to make sure those are the only receptacles on the circuit, remove one receptacle and turn the other into a nema 6-20 and update the breaker to a 240v breaker and mark the ends of the wires to reflect that it is a 240 circuit. If you're renting, you'll maybe have to reverse this when you leave. You'll also need to buy an adapter for the mobile charger to get it to charge at 240/16amp
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ucmndd
Well-Known Member
I think your advice is generally spot-on, but this first paragraph is not at all what the OP was asking to do. They were asking if it would be feasible/permissible to replace one of the existing 5-15 receptacles with a 5-20 (not 15-20).
To distill that original question down into the most succinct answer possible, the general answer is “yes, if the wiring is 12awg and the breaker is 20A”.
Ah, just so. Hope I didn't add to the confusion.
So to re-emphasize: while the 5-20 is seldom seen it is absolutely OK per NEC to put one (or more) on a 20A branch circuit.
Also note again that if the UMC is used with the supplied (with the car) 5-15 adapter plugged into a 5-20 receptacle on a 20 A circuit it will command the car to draw but 12 amps. If, OTOH, the 5-20 adapter is ordered and plugged into the UMC it will then command 16 amps.
So to re-emphasize: while the 5-20 is seldom seen it is absolutely OK per NEC to put one (or more) on a 20A branch circuit.
Also note again that if the UMC is used with the supplied (with the car) 5-15 adapter plugged into a 5-20 receptacle on a 20 A circuit it will command the car to draw but 12 amps. If, OTOH, the 5-20 adapter is ordered and plugged into the UMC it will then command 16 amps.
Keep in mind that modern electrical equipment is designed to be installed as quickly as possible. The box itself is held against a stud and two nails driven. The wires are pulled into the box, trimmed, stripped and poked into holes in that back if the receptacles which are then screwed to the box. An electrician in a hurry may not hold the box exactly perpendicular to the stud. The stud may be warped or missing material and the box doesn't go in parallel to the drywall. That's what I think happened here. Then the electrician tried to pull the receptacle flush with the plate by tightening its mounting screw. This sometimes works, especially with a metal plate but the one illustrated here is obviously plastic and eventually cracked under the strain. If the receptacle wobbles when attempting to plug into it it should be fixed. Perhaps a metal cover plate would do the job. Anything else would probably require removing (and then replacing) drywall and this is a rental.
I'm only seeing two photos neither of which allows me to see the wiring to the receptacles so I can't draw any conclusions as to whether the ground terminal has not been wired nor whether any of the other wires are improperly terminated. I'm puzzled as to how you came to these conclusions Is (was) there a third picture I didn't see? I've already demonstrated that my brain will transform "5-20" to "14-50" to meet my expectation that OP wanted a 14-50R so it's possible I'm looking right at something and not seeing it.
This is a great suggestion as it ought, theoretically, to deliver charging at twice the rate available from 120V. However, and this is quite interesting, the power converter in the car is evidently much more efficient with 240V in. The Tesla website says that 20A @ 120 V will give you 4 mph implying that 0.8*20*120/4 = 480 Wh must be delivered to the car for each mile it is to travel. OTOH 20A @ 240 V delivers 15 mph charge implying 0.8*20*240/15 = 256 Wh/mi. The charger is almost twice (1.875 times) as efficient at 240V. Thus charging rate will be almost 4 times faster (factor of 2 from doubling the voltage and factor of almost 2 from increased voltage converter efficiency) and this is, IMO, well worth doing. And it's not a big deal to do it if you know what you are doing and have a circuit breaker finder. Turns out these are only about $40 these days. You need this gadget to find all other receptacles on the charging circuit. There probably aren't as the breaker in the panel is labeled "Master Bedroom TV Plug" which explains why the box is a quad and also suggests that nothing else is on that circuit but this needs to be checked. If there are any other receptacles they need to be removed and, of course, you lose use of them. The wires connected to them need to be spliced (with wire nuts or the new splicing connectors) such that removal of the receptacles does not break the continuity of the circuit. This goes for the neutrals as well as the hots and the neutrals need a bit of red tape around each one. Replace the cover plates with blanks. At the quad box remove both sets of plugs and replace one with a single 6-20R. Finding a cover plate for this arrangement on a quad box may be a bit of a challenge. Put red tape on the neutral (white wire) and don't cut it, or the black wire, because you will need to put everything back the way it was when you move out. Take pictures as you go.
At the panel remove the the single pole 20 Amp breaker above the tandem in the picture and inspect the panel to be sure that a two pole breaker in that position can access both phases. If it can't you are pretty much out of luck with regard to this simple scheme so you had better do this before doing any of the other work. If a two pole breaker can reach two stabs then get one and install it. Remove the black wire for the charger from the tandem breaker and connect to one pole on this new breaker. Disconnect the neutral (white) wire for the quad (charger) circuit from the neutral bar. Check, with a multimeter, that it is not grounded (which means that you have treated neutral properly in any other box which you had to modify), Tape it with some red tape and connect it to the other pole of the new breaker. Don't trim it because you will be putting back when you undo all this. Finally, take the black wire that was originally connected to the single pole breaker and connect it to the terminal on the tandem breaker from which you removed the charging circuit wire.
If you can't put a two pole breaker in that top slot you are not necessarily dead in the water. As long as there is some fat single pole breaker that can be swapped for a slim dual pole, and especially if there are empty slots in the panel, the job can still be done but some splicing will be necessary. Newer panels are usually quite accommodating with respect to what you can install where but older ones are sometimes limited in the number of slots which will take the skinny two pole breakers. The fact that you have a tandem high in the stack in your panel is encouraging.
All this is completely doable and is in fact quite a simple job for someone who knows what he is doing. To someone with no experience it is going to seem (and probably be) overwhelming. That's what electricians are for but they are, as we all know, quite expensive.
The must be a clothes dryer in this house. Is its receptacle accessible?
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