The story:
I confirmed my Tesla order March 3rd, and shortly there after started seeking an electrician. I asked Tesla for a recommendation as I've never had to hire the services of a licensed electrician before. I consider myself fairly handy and can always fall back to my dad for anything tricky, but needing to do a service upgrade, and pull ~40' of 2AWG electrical cable wasn't something I felt comfortable with.
My house had 100AMP service, but with the Tesla I really wanted the full "Tesla Experience" with in-home 80AMP charging. My service had to be upgraded: I initially planned on going to 200AMP service, and was told by the local power company (Rocky Mountain Power) that I'd have to trench to the junction box, lay conduit and run new cable.
Tesla recommended the company "Gardener Energy". I had them come out to give me an estimate for the work. The guy started counting out loud: $1000 to run the cable, $3000 for a new breaker box, $1000 for a NEMA 14-50, $1200 in conduit, $4000 more if we need to run conduit to the junction box, "no we don't do the trenching, you'll have to find someone else to dig"... I asked them if they could guarantee a price UNDER $10,000... He could not. Gardener Energy even went on to say they may need to rewire my entire house (!) if they get into the breaker and find anything not up to code. Screw Gardener Energy.
I have a NEMA 10-30 plug in my garage. This allows me to charge at 240V 24A or 17mi/hr, which honestly was good enough for pretty much anything I do most of the time. But I was already dead-set on getting the 80AMP HPWC hooked up and being able to charge at 56mi/hr.
I called another electrician, Kyle Clark of ASK Electric (ASK Electric | Utah Electrician Serving Residences in Salt Lake City), and I HIGHLY recommend him for anyone who is in the Salt Lake Valley. Kyle recommended we do 150AMP service instead of 200AMP service, this would allow us to use the already buried service line, saving both a lot of effort and money. For $1,900.00, Kyle installed a new 150AMP electric service box, a 100AMP service box in the garage, ran 2AWG cable from the outside breaker box to the garage, installed a NEMA 14-50 (ground pin up), and hooked up the Tesla HPWC. He did everything to code and got permits from the city when needed.
My old service box (100A) before upgrade (actually before I even owned the house)
Upgraded service box (150A), `just` a little bit bigger.
Garage install and garage sub-panel
(The jars are for shooting/target practice.)
A plugged-in Tesla is a happy Tesla
I confirmed my Tesla order March 3rd, and shortly there after started seeking an electrician. I asked Tesla for a recommendation as I've never had to hire the services of a licensed electrician before. I consider myself fairly handy and can always fall back to my dad for anything tricky, but needing to do a service upgrade, and pull ~40' of 2AWG electrical cable wasn't something I felt comfortable with.
My house had 100AMP service, but with the Tesla I really wanted the full "Tesla Experience" with in-home 80AMP charging. My service had to be upgraded: I initially planned on going to 200AMP service, and was told by the local power company (Rocky Mountain Power) that I'd have to trench to the junction box, lay conduit and run new cable.
Tesla recommended the company "Gardener Energy". I had them come out to give me an estimate for the work. The guy started counting out loud: $1000 to run the cable, $3000 for a new breaker box, $1000 for a NEMA 14-50, $1200 in conduit, $4000 more if we need to run conduit to the junction box, "no we don't do the trenching, you'll have to find someone else to dig"... I asked them if they could guarantee a price UNDER $10,000... He could not. Gardener Energy even went on to say they may need to rewire my entire house (!) if they get into the breaker and find anything not up to code. Screw Gardener Energy.
I have a NEMA 10-30 plug in my garage. This allows me to charge at 240V 24A or 17mi/hr, which honestly was good enough for pretty much anything I do most of the time. But I was already dead-set on getting the 80AMP HPWC hooked up and being able to charge at 56mi/hr.
I called another electrician, Kyle Clark of ASK Electric (ASK Electric | Utah Electrician Serving Residences in Salt Lake City), and I HIGHLY recommend him for anyone who is in the Salt Lake Valley. Kyle recommended we do 150AMP service instead of 200AMP service, this would allow us to use the already buried service line, saving both a lot of effort and money. For $1,900.00, Kyle installed a new 150AMP electric service box, a 100AMP service box in the garage, ran 2AWG cable from the outside breaker box to the garage, installed a NEMA 14-50 (ground pin up), and hooked up the Tesla HPWC. He did everything to code and got permits from the city when needed.
My old service box (100A) before upgrade (actually before I even owned the house)
Upgraded service box (150A), `just` a little bit bigger.
Garage install and garage sub-panel
(The jars are for shooting/target practice.)
A plugged-in Tesla is a happy Tesla