[peterweb]

Oh he's just going to hook me up for being his older brother because I've done a lot for him. I just have to go get all the supplies then he just comes and hooks it up for me.

As he is in the biz, he should be able to get contractor pricing to help save you some more money. Unless you already have contractor pricing.

 

[MileHibryd]

Yea I found 50 ft of 8-3 @ Home Depot for $75 so not to bad for the wire and Nema 14-50 plug is cheap so the install shouldn't cost me more than $100

 

[triggerhappy007]

Yea I found 50 ft of 8-3 @ Home Depot for $75 so not to bad for the wire and Nema 14-50 plug is cheap so the install shouldn't cost me more than $100

We told you 8-3 is not thick enough for a 14-50 outlet, you need 6-3. If you need less than 30 ft, Lowes sell it by the foot.

 

[MileHibryd]

Your right 6-3, I think the 6-3 wasn't that much more than the 8-3 when I looked last night. They were out regardless, they said that it was one of the highest stolen items in their store and they have a hard time keeping the wire in stock for legitimate buyers..crazy

 

[jnads]

Your right 6-3, I think the 6-3 wasn't that much more than the 8-3 when I looked last night. They were out regardless, they said that it was one of the highest stolen items in their store and they have a hard time keeping the wire in stock for legitimate buyers..crazy

6-3 is definitely a bit future proof and yet not future proof enough, that's good for 60 amps @ 80%, I'm not aware of any cars that charge that fast. Yet divided in half that's low for 2 cars. But do remember voltage drop calculations come into play as well. Your car won't be happy if your voltage goes too low. If your run is over 50 feet you'll need to start calculating that.

8-6 is generally all you need for 40 amp 240v charging.

If your main breaker is in your basement and not your garage I would actually run SER wire 1-1-1-2 AL so you could install an entire 125A subpanel if you want future proof. Multiple EVs. This assumes your house has 200A service.

Then run 8-6 Cu from the subpanel to your two drop points for 50A service / 40A max charging (or 6-4 Cu if you want to use the full 14-50 outlets 50A rating).


If you install 6-3 a future owner will be tearing it out and swearing at you wondering why the he*k you did that.

In the future there will probably be a communication standard (Tesla already does it and I believe JuiceBox is starting to) for chargers to communicate with each other about how much they're drawing, so I wouldn't be concerned about multiple future 60A vehicles exceeding the 125A subpanel.

 

[MileHibryd]

Thanks for the response, yea I was thinking about future proofing my garage because right now the outer/inside wall of my garage is not insulated or have any drywall at the moment, so whatever I run I want to be future proof because I plan on installing bats of insulation with 5/8" drywall. So it might be overkill, but will be better than having to rip up the drywall down the road to upgrade the cable/wiring.

Right now I have the Tesla hooked up to it's own dedicated 50amp breaker and would be adding another dedicated 50amp breaker for the Pacifica. My panel is 150 amps at the moment

 

[Meglos]

I decided when installing our ChargePoint Home Flex (CPH50) that I'd future-proof it by hard-wiring it to support the CPH50's full 50 A continuous and even allowing a future upgrade to up to 64 A continuous. Thus, 4-3 MC cable from the subpanel (70 A breaker) to a NEMA enclosure with a short pigtail (using Polaris IT-4 splice connectors) of 6 ga. THHN to the CPH50, which allows 6 ga. max conductor sizes at its terminals. The CPH50 also mandates 90 °C conductors. The IT-4 splice connectors have 90 °C rated terminals. The breakers in my Eaton CH panel are 60/75 °C dual-rated.

There are a lot of details to get right (and many things you can get wrong if you're not detail-oriented and very familiar with the NEC) with these installations, particularly if you're hard-wiring a high-current (like the CPH50) unit. Watch out for terminal ratings on breakers. Most are 60/75 °C dual-rated (and, most significantly, not 90 °C rated). You really need to be aware of details when figuring out the ampacity of a cable or individual conductors. Derating may be needed based on the environment (attics and insulated walls usually require this in warm climates).

Note that branch circuits for continuous loads must be 25% higher amperage (breaker and wiring) than the load. So, for example, the CPH50's 50 A continuous load requires a 50 A * 1.25 = 62.5 A circuit (rounded up to the next available standard breaker size of 70 A). If I ever do upgrade to a 64 A continuous charging station, I'd change the 70 A circuit to an 80 A circuit. That would require a little work at the subpanel: replacing the 70 A breaker with an 80 A breaker and putting short pigtails of 2 ga. on the ends of the 4 ga. conductors since 4 ga. isn't sufficient for 80 A on the CH breaker's 60/75 °C terminals.

All that said, if you're just installing a receptacle (NEMA 14-50R or whatever) and will use a plug-in charging station of 32 A, you should be fine with 6-2 or 6-3 NM, unless you've got cable running through hot zones requiring derating.

 

[MileHibryd]

Nice write up and install you got there

 

[jnads]

Thanks for the response, yea I was thinking about future proofing my garage because right now the outer/inside wall of my garage is not insulated or have any drywall at the moment, so whatever I run I want to be future proof because I plan on installing bats of insulation with 5/8" drywall. So it might be overkill, but will be better than having to rip up the drywall down the road to upgrade the cable/wiring.

Right now I have the Tesla hooked up to it's own dedicated 50amp breaker and would be adding another dedicated 50amp breaker for the Pacifica. My panel is 150 amps at the moment

Subpanel can be up to 80% of the main breaker so you could still install the 1-1-1-2 wire and install a 100 Amp subpanel from your 150A service (technically the 1-1-1-2 is overkill you could do 2-2-2-4 but AL SER wire is dirt cheap and 1-1-1-2 would protect against voltage sag).

100A subpanel would give you 6 circuit spots, for 3 EVs or 2 EVs and 2 garage circuits (125A is 8 spots).


Right now my charge solution is my stove is gas and had electric hookup. It shared a wall with my attached garage so I unhooked the outlet (and removed the outlet), and moved the wiring to the adjacent wall which is the garage (basically connected it 2 inches over) and attached a 14-50. It's a 40A breaker, but my charger only does 32A (Tesla).

I plan on doing the subpanel. Was going to do it last year but some storms made electrical contractors hard to find. I'm going to wait for the Dems to renew the charge infrastructure credit.


Installing a subpanel does count toward the tax credit when or if it gets renewed ("Any and all infrastructure"). You get 30% back.

 

[MileHibryd]

Installing a subpanel does count toward the tax credit when or if it gets renewed ("Any and all infrastructure"). You get 30% back.

Didn't know this!

 

[Meglos]

Installing a subpanel does count toward the tax credit when or if it gets renewed ("Any and all infrastructure"). You get 30% back.

... up to $1,000 for residential installations.

I went over that by quite a lot since I installed two 125 A subpanels (with full 125 A feeds): One right next to the service entrance panel because it was horribly overstuffed (including numerous tandem breakers) and becoming increasingly unmaintainable, and one right under the corner of the garage where I installed the charging station. This was a great (but time-consuming and rather expensive) electrical infrastructure improvement. Well worth my time, because we're going to be starting a house extension project within the next year and this leaves us in a much better position for all the anticipated branch circuits we'll be adding (on the same end of the house as the mostly-empty new second subpanel). I could also add a second charging station (to be used concurrently with the first) without much effort.