Almost Nothing Here Was Wired for a Car
Skip the census on this one; it has nothing to say about what is behind a garage wall. What we can tell you is what we find when we get there, and almost everything we are called to in this city was finished before a car in the garage was something anybody wired for.
That splits charger work in two. On a house going up now, the builder has often left a conduit and a spare panel space, because a car was assumed at design stage, and that provisioning belongs to whoever wires the build. Everywhere else the circuit has to be created from nothing, and that is the half we do.
So the site visit starts by finding a route where none exists and measuring what the service is already carrying, and only then gets to the arithmetic. On almost none of them has anything been left waiting in the panel.
Where the Headroom Number Comes From
A home charger is a continuous load. It runs for hours at close to its rated capacity, which is why it is sized differently from a dryer that runs for 40 minutes. The circuit is sized at 125 percent of the charger's draw, so a 40-amp charger goes on a 50-amp circuit and a 24-amp charger on a 30-amp circuit.
The demand side is a standard residential load calculation, described on our Apache Junction panel page. Subtract the result from your service size, and what remains is your headroom.
If the headroom comfortably covers a 50-amp circuit, this is a straightforward install. If it falls short, you have options, and you will see all of them with whatever arithmetic each one turns on.
Apache Junction EV Charging Questions
1.Do I need a 50-amp circuit?
Only if you want the full rate. A 40-amp charger on a 50-amp circuit is the common specification. A household that parks overnight and drives a moderate day is usually well served by a lower setting on a smaller circuit, and what counts as moderate depends on the car.
2.Will a charger overload my panel?
Not if the circuit is sized against real headroom, which is the whole point of doing the subtraction first. What overloads a panel is a 50-amp circuit added to a service that had nine amps spare, which is why the number comes before the equipment.
3.How does a shared dryer circuit work?
A listed splitter with an interlock sits between the circuit and the two devices, so only one can draw at a time. It is a recognized installation, and it uses a circuit the house already has, capped at 24 amps on the usual 30-amp dryer circuit. The three-wire question described above is the first thing we check because, on a circuit with no separate grounding conductor, this route is closed until one is run.
4.Can I install a charger I already bought?
Usually yes. The circuit is permitted work, and we do it under our license. The unit itself we are happy to fit provided it is a listed and labeled product, which nearly everything sold through normal channels is. Equipment supplied by the customer carries its own manufacturer warranty, and our one-year warranty covers the installation.
5.How long does the work take?
Usually one visit where the route to the panel is workable. Distance, a detached structure or a service change extends it, and the site visit turns that into a date.
6.What if a second car is coming later?
Say so at the site visit even if it is years away. Load management and conduit sizing are decisions worth making once, and planning for a second car changes very little about the first install.
Everything Else We Cover in Apache Junction
A charger is often the first time a panel gets looked at properly. The rest of the Apache Junction pages:
What Apache Junction Customers Say
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