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How to design my garage?
- Thread starter Citizen-T
- Start date
Depending upon how big your garage will be, and how much junk, er storage, you expect to have, you might want to consider a parking arrangement where the car on the right parks head-in while the car on the left backs in. That is so both driver's doors are in the middle for more access space. For the Roadster and the Model S, the charge port is on the driver's side, so that means you would want to have the charge cable available in the middle of the garage rather than on one side or the other. An arrangement that allows pulling down the power cable from the ceiling is really convenient.
Yes, it's very convenient! Went this route some time ago and I am now so spoiled I can't imagine needing to wrap up that heavy cord all the time.
Unfortunately, Tesla is being very unhelpful with garage design considerations. I'm going to be installing charging equipment myself, and I have the freedom to locate it anywhere in my garage. But Tesla simply hasn't released detailed enough information regarding the cables and charge port for me to purchase and install it yet.
It looks like the car will have the charge port at the rear on the driver's side. You have to decide for yourself whether you like to back into your garage or back out of your garage, but it seems like backing in is the better option. That should allow you to guess where to install the charging equipment.
Unfortunately, your next electric car will probably have a charge port in a totally different location.
And perhaps use a totally different form of charging.
Best thing I can suggest: specify a large-diameter electrical conduit connection from the garage to the main breaker board so that you can wire whatever you need to any wall or ceiling without punching extra holes. Then the electrical work for any future configuration becomes simple (install wall-mounted electrical conduit -- you don't mind visible conduit in the garage, I'm assuming). Electrical retrofitting is much simpler if you have wide-diameter conduit, where new wires can simply be pulled through old pipes.
It looks like the car will have the charge port at the rear on the driver's side. You have to decide for yourself whether you like to back into your garage or back out of your garage, but it seems like backing in is the better option. That should allow you to guess where to install the charging equipment.
Unfortunately, your next electric car will probably have a charge port in a totally different location.
And perhaps use a totally different form of charging.Best thing I can suggest: specify a large-diameter electrical conduit connection from the garage to the main breaker board so that you can wire whatever you need to any wall or ceiling without punching extra holes. Then the electrical work for any future configuration becomes simple (install wall-mounted electrical conduit -- you don't mind visible conduit in the garage, I'm assuming). Electrical retrofitting is much simpler if you have wide-diameter conduit, where new wires can simply be pulled through old pipes.
I've been trying to figure out how to do this in my garage -- but the natural place where I'd but the power cable on the ceiling is in the middle of where the sliding garage door retracts to, when it's open. Grrr.... I don't see how to do it.
Really? My garage door is about 7 feet tall and retracts into the garage about 8 feet. On the Roadster, the distance from the nose to the charge port is about 9 feed, and when I back in, I leave a foot and a half in front of the nose. That leaves plenty of clearance for the cord to come down. See my pictures here.
Since the Model S is a much larger car, and since the best rumors put the charge port behind the tail light, the charge location should be at least 12 feet from the front of the garage when backed in.
Yeah.... if I back in. But for various site-specific visibility reasons, I'm not sure it's going to be viable to routinely back into my garage. It's much easier to back out.
Sorry, from your earlier posts I did not catch the requirement for front-in parking. Maybe you could build a steel framework just underneath the garage door rails and have the cord-lowering arrangement attached to that?
I just visited the my house-under-construction and I thought I'd share my plans.
In Holland it is very rare to have a garage where you can park your car in, let alone a Model S! You have to be really wealthy before you can afford such a house.
My house will be on the corner of a block of 4 houses, the situation will be like:
At the back of my yard I'm obliged to make a parking space for my car. Although I don't need to park my car there, there SHOULD be a place where I can park it.
I opted for a 3-phase 3x40A connection in my house, this will give me enough power to run my house and charge the car on 3x16 ~ 3x24A or maybe in the night go to 3x32A.
From the back of my house I have two cables (5G6, 5x6mm2) running to the shed, one cable is to feed the charging station and the other one is to feed my house again.
In my shed I'll have a three-phase input where I can hook up a generator to (when needed) feed my house again. This is needed only for a emergency, should the power fail. (Which almost never happens).
I'll also run two Cat6 STP cables to my shed from where I can hook up my charging station (for information polling) and other stuff.
On the side of the house I'll install another connector so I can also charge a visiting EV owner who might park on the three parking spots next to my house.
My benefit is that all the cabling will be worked away on the concrete floor of my house and the shed, it's nice to be able to do all this while the house is being build.
CAT6 will be running to all my rooms for example, some rooms will even have two connections. You never know why you should need it in the future.
In Holland it is very rare to have a garage where you can park your car in, let alone a Model S! You have to be really wealthy before you can afford such a house.
My house will be on the corner of a block of 4 houses, the situation will be like:
At the back of my yard I'm obliged to make a parking space for my car. Although I don't need to park my car there, there SHOULD be a place where I can park it.
I opted for a 3-phase 3x40A connection in my house, this will give me enough power to run my house and charge the car on 3x16 ~ 3x24A or maybe in the night go to 3x32A.
From the back of my house I have two cables (5G6, 5x6mm2) running to the shed, one cable is to feed the charging station and the other one is to feed my house again.
In my shed I'll have a three-phase input where I can hook up a generator to (when needed) feed my house again. This is needed only for a emergency, should the power fail. (Which almost never happens).
I'll also run two Cat6 STP cables to my shed from where I can hook up my charging station (for information polling) and other stuff.
On the side of the house I'll install another connector so I can also charge a visiting EV owner who might park on the three parking spots next to my house.
My benefit is that all the cabling will be worked away on the concrete floor of my house and the shed, it's nice to be able to do all this while the house is being build.
CAT6 will be running to all my rooms for example, some rooms will even have two connections. You never know why you should need it in the future.
wido,
good job planning all this in advance. I finished my house in 2009. Running one Cat5e to every room seemed sufficient back then. Today, I wish I had them all run in empty conduit so I could pull in new cabling (Cat6, optical). 50mm diameter empty conduit is running from the electric mains to the garage, and to all three parking spaces in front of the house. Wish I had added separate, 12mm empty conduit for STP cabling, too.
good job planning all this in advance. I finished my house in 2009. Running one Cat5e to every room seemed sufficient back then. Today, I wish I had them all run in empty conduit so I could pull in new cabling (Cat6, optical). 50mm diameter empty conduit is running from the electric mains to the garage, and to all three parking spaces in front of the house. Wish I had added separate, 12mm empty conduit for STP cabling, too.
I'm going to see if I can handle backing in without running into things, first. There are some visibility problems and it involves backing in around a curve (backing out around the curve has much better visibility which is why I'm skeptical).
I may try the steel framework idea but I'll have to find someone who really knows what he's doing to do that -- it's rather beyond me. Thanks for the idea.
If you'd prefer not to back in, then I'd try to design around that. You can't put your EVSE/outlet on a wall to the left of where you plan to park the Model S??
If you end up going with the steel framework idea, it's fairly easy to build something semi-professional looking using Unistrut. It's like LEGOs for grownups.
Right, that is what I had in mind when I suggested a steel framework. I've often seen it used to mount the garage door opener itself. Depending upon how the garage door rails are attached, it might be possible to couple into that mounting.
Todd Burch
14-Year Member
OK, here's an interesting one:
We have 3 cats. Their litter box is in the garage, and our garage entry door (leading into the house) has a cat door in it. I'm concerned that when I start using the garage door to park the Model S in the garage (we park in the driveway now) that the cats will make a run for it when the door opens. I also don't want paw-prints all over my Model S.
It's a 2-car garage, and I'll be parking head-in on the right side (away from the door that leads inside) so that the litter boxes and cats can be contained in the left half of the garage.
I've been pondering the best way to keep the cats (and their litter) on the left side of the garage. Anyone have any ideas? Maybe cats just won't try to make a break for it when the door opens and a car rolls inside? Seems kinda silly to install some sort of fence or partition down the center of the garage...
This might be a little off topic as it doesn't have anything to do with a charger, but the topic IS "How to design my garage?"
We have 3 cats. Their litter box is in the garage, and our garage entry door (leading into the house) has a cat door in it. I'm concerned that when I start using the garage door to park the Model S in the garage (we park in the driveway now) that the cats will make a run for it when the door opens. I also don't want paw-prints all over my Model S.
It's a 2-car garage, and I'll be parking head-in on the right side (away from the door that leads inside) so that the litter boxes and cats can be contained in the left half of the garage.
I've been pondering the best way to keep the cats (and their litter) on the left side of the garage. Anyone have any ideas? Maybe cats just won't try to make a break for it when the door opens and a car rolls inside? Seems kinda silly to install some sort of fence or partition down the center of the garage...
This might be a little off topic as it doesn't have anything to do with a charger, but the topic IS "How to design my garage?"
Mycroft
Life happens
Three cats and a single litter box?! No wonder you want it in the garage!
You have three choices that I see.
1. Increase the number of boxes to three and move them inside.
2. Fence in their area.
3. Install an external HPC and park the car outside.
You have three choices that I see.
1. Increase the number of boxes to three and move them inside.
2. Fence in their area.
3. Install an external HPC and park the car outside.
I've done this at my house (and the previous house). It's not hard to build a little 4x4x4 foot cage around the cat door to give them an enclosed area in the garage. I just stapled mesh covering over a square framed out of wood.
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