Looking to put together what's needed for a charger install

[RSMLightning25]

Hey Guys,

I have a buddy in electrical supply that I can source parts to install a charger at my place. I am simply trying to get a parts list together and I'll run the wire and conduit but have an electrician hook everything up.

Looking at a Tesla universal wall connector or a charge point home flex so I can a rebate from the electric company. I see the Tesla will accept up to 4 awg and the flex at 6 awg. I will have a run of right around 100ft as my power is on the other side of my house and I need to run to a detached garage. looking at 4 and 6 awg thhn, the needed breakers and what not. I've been looking at threads here and reddit posts on what I need but it looks like installs are not that consistent.

Any help you guys can provide on what all I need to procure would be great.

Thanks! - Richard

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[P-38]

I would ask the electrician who is going to connect everything because they will have an opinion and are responsible for the install.

Going out on a limb that your 2025 is not a fleet truck so you only need 48 amps of charging max. This will mean a 60 amp circuit. If you use Romex then you need 4awg if you use thhn then 6awg is ok given the run length. Or there are exceptions and other nuggets of wisdom strewn through out the code as well as the inspectors preference(they might made you use 4awg even if code allows 6awg) so it should be the electrician who is terminating And pulling the permit who gives you a BOM that you then procure.

 

[PJnc284]

No two installs are the same so it varies as you've found. As suggested above, discussing it with the electrician would be best as there are a lot of questions. What is your main panel capacity? Is the detached garage already powered? Assuming you have the capacity it might be worth running a larger line to a subpanel in the garage and then adding the charger. Are you planning to route through a crawl space and then trench to the detached garage?

 

[RSMLightning25]

My main capacity is 200 amp with room for additional breakers. The detached garage is powered with wire running in the attic to the other side of the house and then underground back up into the garage. I would route the new wire through the attic as well and then trench to the garage as you mentioned. I definitely would like to run to a sub panel for this install.

 

[P-38]

Then so many variables come into play with a sub panel...how large, future uses...more code rules with underground...

While I have the knowledge to parse thru I am not an electrician and don't feel comfortable suggesting a BOM for this project. Best of luck.

 

[RSMLightning25]

Then so many variables come into play with a sub panel...how large, future uses...more code rules with underground...

While I have the knowledge to parse thru I am not an electrician and don't feel comfortable suggesting a BOM for this project. Best of luck.

Thanks! I'm just in research mode at the moment for talking points for when I get an electrician out. Just wanting to educate myself as much as possible before the come out.

 

[K6CCC]

My opinion here. Although it may cost more, use conduit and THHN wire rather than Romex. Makes it FAR easier to make some change down the road. Also whatever size you NEED of conduit, put in at least one size larger - especially since your conduit run is moderately long. If there will be more than two 90 degree bends, put an intermediate pull point (pull box or condulet). Yes, code allows 360 degrees of bend, but with larger wire, much cursing will be avoided by keeping the number of bends down.

Also a trick from an electrician friend, if you have condulet at a bend, use one size larger condulet and put reducers to the conduit. This is particularly true when using larger size wire. For example from my main to my garage sub-panel, code required 1.25 inch conduit. I put in 1.5 inch conduit, but for each of several condulets, I put in 2 inch condulets with reducers to the 1.5 inch conduit. Made pulling the large 2 AWG wire far easier. The difference in cost for the larger conduit and condulets was easily worth it in my time and effort saved. The inspector liked it too.

 

[RSMLightning25]

Thanks for the note. I see what you mean after some googling. Makes sense to me. I want to do this once and for it to be appropriate. I'll try to keep the 90 degree bends to a minimum but, I am thinking there will be at least 4 throughout the run. I do want to use THHN over Romex

 

[K6CCC]

Sometimes you have little or no choice on number of bends. In the case of my main to sub-panel, there are five condulets and three 90 degree bends and one 45 degree bend. When I had the new concrete poured for my driveway (a good 15 years ago), I knew the plan was to put a sub panel in the garage. My electrician told me I needed a minimum of 1.25 inch conduit, so I put in about 20 feet of 1.5 inch PCV with a 90 bend at each end under the driveway before the concrete was poured. I stubbed up each end with my best guess as to where it needed to be. A decade later I did the major project to replace the main and add the sub panel. Turned out that at the main end, my best guess was about a foot off, so I put a condulet on the stub, about a foot of conduit and another condulet to go up into the new main. At the garage end, there is a condulet at the top of the stub out of the concrete and then all of 6 inches or so of conduit that pokes through the wall into the garage and then another condulet to go up the wall via a 45 degree bend, then a 90 degree bend to go over the two feet to the top of the sub panel. Lastly another condulet into the top fitting of the sub panel. Note that for the conduit inside the garage, I just used 2 inch conduit rather than reducers.

Note that because when I put the conduit in below the driveway, I did not have an electrical project in progress, and therefore no permit. So I just photo documented the living daylights out of the conduit run so that I could prove that the conduit was deep enough to meet code. When I had the sub panel project inspected, I told the inspector that I had photos to prove that the top of the conduit was 22 inched below the bottom of the concrete (4 inches more than required), he believed me so I did not need the photos. It does help when you get along well with your inspector!

 

[RSMLightning25]

Yeah, I'll need this to be all up to snuff for inspection and whatnot. I just want it done right and do have a consult with an electrician tomorrow to see where things should go from here. I appreciate the insight and experience you have shared with me.

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