You probably don't need fast charge speed at home

[gilscales]

There is nothing magical about the HPWC. He could install a 6-20 outlet (if it's dedicated) just as easily.

The HPWC really pays off when you go above 40A or you need to plug in outdoors. It would be a bit overkill for 20A 240V indoors IMHO. But if you were thinking of upgrading later or moving then it might make sense.

Understood, Just that any outlet is required to have a neutral wire and since the HPWC is a dedicated hardwired unit it is not required to have a neutral so the OP could get away with using the 12/2 wire that is already in place by utilizing both the hot and neutral wires as the hot legs for a 240V connection and still having the bare wire in the 12/2 Romex as the equipment ground

 

[ivan801]

Ok, ok guys. I agree that I can do a lot better than 120 V 20 A dedicated outlet. And I do have a fall back option of backing the car into the garage and using J1772 if I have to.

But here is a question for those who know: if I wanted to upgrade my 5-20 outlet to 6-15 or 6-20, and providing that my current 5-20 run is on HomeDepot romex 12/2 wire (the yellow wire), I would still need to find a way to free up a single slot in my panel, right? My electrician told me that I don't have any more slots that can be doubled up. What options do I have?

 

[mswlogo]

Ok, ok guys. I agree that I can do a lot better than 120 V 20 A dedicated outlet. And I do have a fall back option of backing the car into the garage and using J1772 if I have to.

But here is a question for those who know: if I wanted to upgrade my 5-20 outlet to 6-15 or 6-20, and providing that my current 5-20 run is on HomeDepot romex 12/2 wire (the yellow wire), I would still need to find a way to free up a single slot in my panel, right? My electrician told me that I don't have any more slots that can be doubled up. What options do I have?

Post a couple pics of your Panel Breakers and the Back of the Door with the specs.

It's possible you have a "small" 200A panel. But most are fairly large. And if you doubled up on every slot that you could on a large panel that is really full. But it's doubtful your using up all the capacity of a 200A service. Unless you have electric heat (which can chew up a lot of capacity).

If every slot is a "twin" that can be, then you can look at other slots to see if any can be combined. Like many houses might put a door bell transformer on it's own breaker, you can move that onto another circuit and free up a slot. So it might take a little shuffling to free up a slot.

You said you had another 240 Circuit. You could remove the breaker for that and put a larger breaker to a sub panel. Then move your existing 240 circuit to that subpanel and then add (or move your 20A wire) to a new 240 circuit to that sub panel. It really would not be a lot of money to do something like that. That would be worst case and maybe cost $400? Depends if walls are finished etc.

Going from 20A 120V to 240V is a tiny increase in your load. But a good electrician should give you a few options. Saying sorry no room is rarely true on such modest request and such a high capacity panel.

 

[Big Earl]

Ok, ok guys. I agree that I can do a lot better than 120 V 20 A dedicated outlet. And I do have a fall back option of backing the car into the garage and using J1772 if I have to.

But here is a question for those who know: if I wanted to upgrade my 5-20 outlet to 6-15 or 6-20, and providing that my current 5-20 run is on HomeDepot romex 12/2 wire (the yellow wire), I would still need to find a way to free up a single slot in my panel, right? My electrician told me that I don't have any more slots that can be doubled up. What options do I have?

Have you considered moving your J1772 station to the other side of the garage? It shouldn't be more than about 20 feet of wire and conduit.

 

[Emmexx1]

I totally agree that spending 60k on a car and then cheaping out on $1000 for a solid charging solution at home seems silly. The wiring for a solid home charging solution is likely to be in use for decades, so you can amortize the cost over that time.

Honestly, with the amount I drive, and comparing gas costs to electricity, and my cost of electricity compared to supercharging and the drive to the supercharger, the install has already paid for itself.

 

[Rocky_H]

Understood, Just that any outlet is required to have a neutral wire and since the HPWC is a dedicated hardwired unit it is not required to have a neutral so the OP could get away with using the 12/2 wire that is already in place by utilizing both the hot and neutral wires as the hot legs for a 240V connection and still having the bare wire in the 12/2 Romex as the equipment ground

That is not true. That's the point of the 6-XX series of outlet types. They are Hot1, Hot2, and ground. There is no neutral, so they are 240V only. Code requires wire marking at both ends if you are going to switch the outlet type and re-purpose the white wire to be a hot line instead of neutral.

 

[gilscales]

That is not true. That's the point of the 6-XX series of outlet types. They are Hot1, Hot2, and ground. There is no neutral, so they are 240V only. Code requires wire marking at both ends if you are going to switch the outlet type and re-purpose the white wire to be a hot line instead of neutral.

I stand corrected, I was thinking of the Nema 14-xx and did not consider the 6-20, my bad for giving misleading info, so a cheap solution is to wrap the white neutral with black tape at each end to show it as a hot wire and hook up a 2 pole breaker in the panel (assuming the op could find room to make that work) install a Nema 6-20 and Viola a working 20A 240V 16 mile per hour charging set up for your mobile connector and the additional adapter from Tesla for the mobile adapter (as long as it is determined that the 12/2 run is a dedicated circuit)

 

[gilscales]

Ok, ok guys. I agree that I can do a lot better than 120 V 20 A dedicated outlet. And I do have a fall back option of backing the car into the garage and using J1772 if I have to.

But here is a question for those who know: if I wanted to upgrade my 5-20 outlet to 6-15 or 6-20, and providing that my current 5-20 run is on HomeDepot romex 12/2 wire (the yellow wire), I would still need to find a way to free up a single slot in my panel, right? My electrician told me that I don't have any more slots that can be doubled up. What options do I have?

You should post a picture of the breakers and if there is legible information on the inside cover a picture of that as well just to confirm that this is true

 

[Glamisduner]

I have been finding my 14-50 isn't enough with the loaner S and a 40 amp charger.

All it took to realize this was having to come home at lunch at chop up a tree that fell down in the driveway, then drive back to work.
Then I realized that while I could charge enough to get to work tomorrow during super off peak hours, I would only have a 60% charge. It would take 2 days of super off speak charging to get back to 90%. Not ideal.

 

[mswlogo]

I have been finding my 14-50 isn't enough with the loaner S and a 40 amp charger.

All it took to realize this was having to come home at lunch at chop up a tree that fell down in the driveway, then drive back to work.
Then I realized that while I could charge enough to get to work tomorrow during super off peak hours, I would only have a 60% charge. It would take 2 days of super off speak charging to get back to 90%. Not ideal.

Say what? Are you saying the "super off peak" time span is very short?

Off Peak charging is another good reason to get more than 120V Charging so that you can do all your charging within the Off Peak time span.

 

[Glamisduner]

Say what? Are you saying the "super off peak" time span is very short?

Off Peak charging is another good reason to get more than 120V Charging so that you can do all your charging within the Off Peak time span.

only 12:00 to 6:00am

 

[eprosenx]

In my unique case, both of my panels are totally maxed out, including doubling up anything that can be doubled up. For some reason, even though my house was only built about 15 years ago, builder only provisioned 200 A service (my house is almost 5000 SF). I probably could find a way to increase my 20 A 120 V circuit to 20 A 240 V circuit, but even that would require re-shuffling half of my panel.

Yeah, I agree that is unfortunate that your builder did not provision a 320/400a service for that large a house.

I would recommend you buy a Sense Energy Monitor and install it. You might find that the house actually does not use as much power as you would think. (or who knows, it might depending on what you have in the house!)

Can you post pictures of your panels? The circuits themselves (so we can read sizes), and the panel schedule, and the sticker on the door? Generally with this we can tell which positions are eligible for putting in a tandem breaker. Of course, physically fitting in a breaker is only part of the equation - clearly you need to have enough load capacity per the calculations as well.

Edit: I just realized that I posted this without reading the next page of posts where others asked for the same info.

 

[gilscales]

We are lucky we have 10:00 pm to 8:00 am super off peak here

 

[mswlogo]

Yeah, I agree that is unfortunate that your builder did not provision a 320/400a service for that large a house.

I would recommend you buy a Sense Energy Monitor and install it. You might find that the house actually does not use as much power as you would think. (or who knows, it might depending on what you have in the house!)

Can you post pictures of your panels? The circuits themselves (so we can read sizes), and the panel schedule, and the sticker on the door? Generally with this we can tell which positions are eligible for putting in a tandem breaker. Of course, physically fitting in a breaker is only part of the equation - clearly you need to have enough load capacity per the calculations as well.

Edit: I just realized that I posted this without reading the next page of posts where others asked for the same info.

Energy monitors are great. I saved a ton by seeing what I’m using.

 

[ivan801]

OK, after all the encouragement I received here I think I figured out a solution: I have a dedicated 120V circuit for my jetted tub. Since I never use the jets, I will just disconnect the line and use the space for the second pole to create a 6-20 line. That will double my charge rate (at minimum). I will have to do some re-shuffling in my panel, but I think that I can make it work. And I re-checked, I am totally maxed out on tandem slots, I checked to make sure that there is a rejection clip in all the non-tandem slots.

 

[adaptabl]

L2 is not fast charging. L2 is needed for 95% of EV owners. No one should buy an EV without reliable L2 charging availability.

 

[adaptabl]

OK, after all the encouragement I received here I think I figured out a solution: I have a dedicated 120V circuit for my jetted tub. Since I never use the jets, I will just disconnect the line and use the space for the second pole to create a 6-20 line. That will double my charge rate (at minimum). I will have to do some re-shuffling in my panel, but I think that I can make it work. And I re-checked, I am totally maxed out on tandem slots, I checked to make sure that there is a rejection clip in all the non-tandem slots.

I would have a qualified electrician look at your situation. It sounds pretty sketchy and dangerous. You do not want to burn down your home.

 

[mswlogo]

I would have a qualified electrician look at your situation. It sounds pretty sketchy and dangerous. You do not want to burn down your home.

Some towns allow home owners to do their own electrical work. A neighbor installed a pool around the same time I did. He had a licensed electrician do his. I did my own. His never passed electrical inspection. Mine did . Many home owners will do better work and take their time, research it, buy better components etc. Technically he needs a permit but on something this minor I wouldn't bother and based on his post he sounds like he knows what he is doing. It's his home, his call. It's a pretty minor change he proposed and is basically what some folks suggest he do.

It's probably more dangerous getting on your roof and cleaning gutters.

 

[adaptabl]

Some towns allow home owners to do their own electrical work. A neighbor installed a pool around the same time I did. He had a licensed electrician do his. I did my own. His never passed electrical inspection. Mine did . Many home owners will do better work and take their time, research it, buy better components etc. Technically he needs a permit but on something this minor I wouldn't bother and based on his post he sounds like he knows what he is doing. It's his home, his call. It's a pretty minor change he proposed and is basically what some folks suggest he do.

It's probably more dangerous getting on your roof and cleaning gutters.

In a normal case I would agree but in this case it looks like a fully loaded panel and adding a large constant load like EV charging may be just too much to be safe. It might be time for a service upgrade to do this safely.

 

[mswlogo]

In a normal case I would agree but in this case it looks like a fully loaded panel and adding a large constant load like EV charging may be just too much to be safe. It might be time for a service upgrade to do this safely.

Upgrading his service for additional 2400 watts out of 48,000 watts would be ridiculous. Now there might be other good reasons. He is freeing up a load for another. Now if he wanted to go much larger he might need to take a step back.

The whole load calculations thing is a bit grey and if you had 3 electricians calculate it, you’d get 3 different answers. I’ll bet (unless he has electric heat) he’s no where near the limit of his 200A panel. If he has 5000 sq ft I doubt he has electric heat.

My house averages for the day during peak season usage with AC and Pool running is a 1000 watts. With an occasional peak of 4000 watts. That was before the EV though.

People tend to be using less electricity except for EV. And less peaky. My pool, AC,Heat, Frig are all now variable speed DC motors. Running low speed continuous. LED lights. LCD TV’s etc.

I could probably get away with a 60 amp service. With an EV. 200A is a ton of capacity. He just probably has lots lights and convenience outlets. That chews up a lot of circuits. But not much load. He still only has one kitchen, wash room etc. His largest load is probably AC (as it is for most people).

He said it was a new-ish house.