Sunrun "other work" quotes for Pro charger install

[AdmiralYamo]

Hey everyone,

Got a new document to sign from sunrun for an additional $2000 for "other work" to install a subpanel, and a now $2000 from $1500 for "work" to get my ford charger installed. I'm in chicago so i know they have to pipe most of it, but what seems like $4000 to get a charger installed to go less than 40-50ft seems quite crazy.

Has anyone else gotten an "other work" on their plan? I got my in person site inspection done in august 2022 and signed my documents in november.

Love the truck, but stuck charging on a NEMA 6-15, which isn't horrible. Better than a 120v outlet before.

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[Pitbull2o08]

I'd hire a licensed electrician to give you a second opinion.

 

[AdmiralYamo]

I'd hire a licensed electrician to give you a second opinion.

The electricians i've talked to told me 5k with tandem breakers and no sub panel. Another wanted $100 to show up and couldn't give me any order of magnitude over the phone. Another was 3k for a 50 amp circuit no sub panel, and an unlicensed person would do it closer to 500-1000 i provide materials...

I'm finding it hard to believe electrical stuff costs this much. at $4-5k for a charger, it doesn't seem worth installing a charger and just running off the nema 6-16.

 

[PA Lightning]

The electricians i've talked to told me 5k with tandem breakers and no sub panel. Another wanted $100 to show up and couldn't give me any order of magnitude over the phone. Another was 3k for a 50 amp circuit no sub panel, and an unlicensed person would do it closer to 500-1000 i provide materials...

I'm finding it hard to believe electrical stuff costs this much. at $4-5k for a charger, it doesn't seem worth installing a charger and just running off the nema 6-16.

Just to give you a price comparison, I paid $1,080 to have a 50 amp circuit run (100 ft). I am in PA and I assume things cost more in big cities like Chicago.

 

[AdmiralYamo]

Just to give you a price comparison, I paid $1,080 to have a 50 amp circuit run (100 ft). I am in PA and I assume things cost more in big cities like Chicago.

Yeah 50 amp 100ft doesn't seem back for $1000 and change. I'm getting quotes in the 3k for half that distance in an unfinished basement.
We are out in the suburbs so i'm a little perplexed at my quotes unless business is just too good out here.

 

[khatch]

Just doing a quick supply list, HD has 3 AWG thhn for about 2.50 per foot. Since you need two of those (50 feet each), call it 250 dollars. 75 dollars for 50 ft of 6 AWG for the ground wire. 1 inch EMT conduit is about 20 dollars per 10 feet, so another 100 dollars. 100 amp circuit breaker, about 50 dollars. With the other little things like conduit couplers, brackets, elbows, etc. I think the total parts would be between 500 - 600 dollars. Not sure if I'm missing anything.

I think one guy can do it in one day. I don't know how they get away with charging thousands... but I'm not surprised. It seems like everything is expensive these days.

 

[Pitbull2o08]

Just doing a quick supply list, HD has 3 AWG thhn for about 2.50 per foot. Since you need two of those (50 feet each), call it 250 dollars. 75 dollars for 50 ft of 6 AWG for the ground wire. 1 inch EMT conduit is about 20 dollars per 10 feet, so another 100 dollars. 100 amp circuit breaker, about 50 dollars. With the other little things like conduit couplers, brackets, elbows, etc. I think the total parts would be between 500 - 600 dollars. Not sure if I'm missing anything.

I think one guy can do it in one day. I don't know how they get away with charging thousands... but I'm not surprised. It seems like everything is expensive these days.

This is correct. Their hourly rate for their work is ridiculous. If your county or city mandates it then you just need to get multiple quotes. I’ve done the 14-50 myself in both washington state and california and it’s been a couple hundred bucks each for that, fwiw. Wiring costs the most.

OR! Make good friends with an electrician or ask around to find mutual contacts. Most people don’t gouge people who have mutual friends or family involved.

 

[Oafy44]

Not to play devils advocate but any contractor/ small business owner / upper management on here will agree if they are running certified /insured/ worker comped employees who are licensed - $4-5k is probably a bit high but not outrageous.especially since Covid. We have 25 employees and I can tell you just like everything , prices have gone way up not just on materials , but most with labor for the service sector. Would you like an un licensed / non insured / no worker comp company to come out and do your electrical. Some wouldn’t have a problem / many would have a problem.

since I own a business I know what the real costs are associated with the service industry/ let alone any industry really. Customers think we pay grown adults $12 an hour and never think about what companies pay to cover all vehicles / equipment / employees/ ect and just think we pay people under the table.

sorry for getting off on a tangent , and get multiple quotes - just know a licensed electrician is costing a company to hire that person a lot more then you think. sometimes finding an owner/operator is the best option but that’s not always in the cards.
Life is good- we all have $70k plus Lightnings- my guess is sun run might use contracted crews to do a lot of these installs and are 20-40% higher than a local electrician.

I’ve noticed for the most part ages 60 and up really haven’t been able to process inflation on a business side- only how it affects them personally. The 35-59 crowd we deal with I think understands it more because they are dealing with it at their place of work too so they see how it affects company overhead / keeping qualified work force ect. At this point the blue collar workforce is probably more essential to companies right now than middle/ upper management. No disrespect to any white collar people out there , it’s just we have entered a period where the blue collar worker has more power now than anytime the last 40 years IMO

 

[Photon]

But if you ever tried bending 6ga nonetheless 3ga wire by yourself? It takes skill and experience to get it done correctly which is what you’re paying for. I’ve seen cheap electricians and I’ve seen really good ones. You get what you paid for and typically that’s not Sunrun. Get more quotes.

 

[Skidrowe]

I was quoted $2500 and $5000. I obviously went with the lower quote since it was with a company I trusted from previous work. They upgraded the panel first and billed me for $1509 of actual work and parts. Then when my FCSP arrived, they came back and installed it next to the panel (about 2 feet of conduit and wire) for, let me check, $336. So I had a panel upgrade and the charger installed for under $2k. I almost forgot, my utility company charged me about $200ish for disconnecting and reconnecting my power for the panel upgrade.

 

[Ken]

Sunrun originally had a fixed install price regardless of the complexity- and it was close to 3k iirc. Since I was installing right next to the main power panel mine was pretty simple. I called an electrician who had put some lights in the bathroom for me and he quoted $1k and had it done in less than a week. It's probably only 5 feet of wire, but he ended up running it out the back of the main power panel, across the inside of the garage, and then into the back of the charger. That also can easily support an indoor charger in the future if I get a smaller vehicle that fits in the garage.

 

[AdmiralYamo]

Not to play devils advocate but any contractor/ small business owner / upper management on here will agree if they are running certified /insured/ worker comped employees who are licensed - $4-5k is probably a bit high but not outrageous.especially since Covid. We have 25 employees and I can tell you just like everything , prices have gone way up not just on materials , but most with labor for the service sector. Would you like an un licensed / non insured / no worker comp company to come out and do your electrical. Some wouldn’t have a problem / many would have a problem.

since I own a business I know what the real costs are associated with the service industry/ let alone any industry really. Customers think we pay grown adults $12 an hour and never think about what companies pay to cover all vehicles / equipment / employees/ ect and just think we pay people under the table.

sorry for getting off on a tangent , and get multiple quotes - just know a licensed electrician is costing a company to hire that person a lot more then you think. sometimes finding an owner/operator is the best option but that’s not always in the cards.
Life is good- we all have $70k plus Lightnings- my guess is sun run might use contracted crews to do a lot of these installs and are 20-40% higher than a local electrician.

I’ve noticed for the most part ages 60 and up really haven’t been able to process inflation on a business side- only how it affects them personally. The 35-59 crowd we deal with I think understands it more because they are dealing with it at their place of work too so they see how it affects company overhead / keeping qualified work force ect. At this point the blue collar workforce is probably more essential to companies right now than middle/ upper management. No disrespect to any white collar people out there , it’s just we have entered a period where the blue collar worker has more power now than anytime the last 40 years IMO

I really enjoyed this narrative. Part of me is still struggling on these prices with inflation as I paid about $2500 for a 100 to 200 amp upgrade and a few hundred to run a similar 50ft line of 120v. Going from that in 2018 to $5k for a 100 amp line just seems outrageous.

Another question for the community is it becoming standard practice to charge customers about $100-$200 to get a quote for new work? I understand that's fair when something is broken.

 

[rdr854]

I paid $2800 for the installation of a 100 am circuit, the running of the wiring from the Panel in one side of the house to the other, which included coming from the finished basement to the upper level and the installation of a cut-off switch in the garage and the charge station on the outside of the house.

 

[EdRudy]

It took about 3 months for me once I received the charger. that included the on-site survey, build specs, and county permitting. The permit process took about 10 weeks of the 12 week process.

Guess I got lucky, SunRun did the install, pulled all of the permits, installed the Ford Charger next to the garage door, about 20’ away from panel, installed conduit, completed the work in about 3 hours, all for $1,500.00. They even fixed my outdoor 120v GFCI outlet for free while they were here.

Oh, they also assisted with the iPhone app install, connected the charger to my wireless, setup the charger in Ford Pass, and made sure everything was in working order before they left. Great crew!

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