Tesla wall charger enclosure for mountain weather

[Sacramento]

I jumped through all the HOA hoops to install a wall charger at my parking space in a community of free-standing condominiums at 7,000 feet on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe. The homeowners association provided strict specifications for size and color: 18" wide, 14" deep, 48" high and Oxford brown.

I tried to find a fabricator to build a steel box similar to the nearby "bear box" garbage enclosures but the quotes were ridiculous. So I built an enclosure from a single sheet of 3/4" plywood mounted on a two-foot-square concrete slab. I'm surprised there aren't more commercially available enclosures.

Pro tip: Beware of Tesla- recommended electricians. One guy I contacted wanted $3,500 to replace the 50-year-old electric panel and then an extra $1,000 to connect the wall charger, even after I told him I was running the conduit and pulling the wires myself. I call it a "Tesla tax."

I bought my own panel and breakers at Home Depot for about $600 and found a respected electrician in Reno who swapped out the panel for $1,200. By the way, while I was pulling the #4 AWG wires for the wall charger, I also pulled a set of #6 AWG wires for a 240v NEMA 14-50 outlet on a GFCI breaker for future visitors with non-Tesla EVs– and, of course, a 120v circuit for a light and outlet for vacuums, etc. One more thing: If you're running underground conduit, pay a bit extra for 2" PVC. Plastic is cheap and it makes pulling heavy conductors a piece of cake.

 

[wildbill63]

Looks like you did exactly what I need to do on my own property in Tahoe.. My service panel is on the front of the house and has room for a 60AMP circuit which I guess would be the #4 AWG, I need to run it under the deck, into the ground and then out to the driveway and up inside a shed I have in the driveway. I'd also like to pull a circuit for 120v -- not certain I'd need to pull for the 14-50 as well, might be easier to just provide a J1772 connector for the tesla charger and not worry about it for other vehicles. I'm in southlake, and was looking to add something similar to the side of the shed I have in the driveway. What plastic underground conduit did you end up with 2" vs. 1.5" I probably need to go 30ft from the service panel, underground and up inside the shed. Any suggestions you have and/or electrician recommendations would be awesome to get from you..
Thanks!
Doug

 

[ATPMSD]

I expect we will soon find that HOA restrictions like this will not be enforcible. Nothing personal, but that big box looks a lot worse than a post mounted wall connector. Remember when they tried to prevent satellite dishes? All it will take is a pissed off lawyer homeowner.

 

[Sacramento]

Looks like you did exactly what I need to do on my own property in Tahoe.. My service panel is on the front of the house and has room for a 60AMP circuit which I guess would be the #4 AWG, I need to run it under the deck, into the ground and then out to the driveway and up inside a shed I have in the driveway. I'd also like to pull a circuit for 120v -- not certain I'd need to pull for the 14-50 as well, might be easier to just provide a J1772 connector for the tesla charger and not worry about it for other vehicles. I'm in southlake, and was looking to add something similar to the side of the shed I have in the driveway. What plastic underground conduit did you end up with 2" vs. 1.5" I probably need to go 30ft from the service panel, underground and up inside the shed. Any suggestions you have and/or electrician recommendations would be awesome to get from you..
Thanks!
Doug

Hey Doug– I went with 2" IMC metal conduit from Home Depot for about the first 2/3 of the run because it only needs 6" of soil cover. Then I had an issue when I came to a change in grade– IMC is impossible for a DIYer to bend– and a pre-bent 45 degree elbow wouldn't work. So I transitioned to 2" PVC and bent it to the perfect angle with a heat gun. PVC only needs 4" of cover if it's concrete...I mixed up about eight sacks of Quickrete into a sloppy Joe slurry and it was really easy. Made me regret not running PVC the whole way. If you're only going to pull three or four #4 conductors and three #12 conductors for 110V, 2" conduit is probably overkill. I just want to future proof my install. I'm in Washoe County and the two building inspectors I dealt with out of Reno were really impressed by the work. I'm pretty sure El Dorado County uses the same NEC code, so you shouldn't have any problems. The only reason I pulled wire for the 14-50 is because I was doing all the work, so the only cost was the wire itself. I thought it would be "fancy" to have two 240V circuits in the box. -George

 

[Sacramento]

I expect we will soon find that HOA restrictions like this will not be enforcible. Nothing personal, but that big box looks a lot worse than a post mounted wall connector. Remember when they tried to prevent satellite dishes? All it will take is a pissed off lawyer homeowner.

The truth is, I wanted to put the Tesla charger inside a steel bear box, right next to four existing bear boxes for trash. I thought it would look great but the HOA president didn't agree. As of September, she's gone and I'm on the board LOL. We're at 7,000 feet and a wall charger on a pole wouldn't survive a single winter, I'm afraid.