Advice on charger location in garage

[thefisch]

Get a smaller shop vac.

Need the bigger, more powerful vac for getting sand out of the car and the longer hose is needed to reach the front seats on both sides. And we have another vac on rollers that my wife doesn't like to use for car cleaning so I use that outside or for projects. So the vac is staying.

I will probably mount the charging cable over the single garage door opening like the examples others have shared. The excess cable will be suspended from ceiling or draped near the vac but it will only be about 8-9 feet.

 

[bhzmark]

Tell her you will vacuum the car. Trust me. The best place to put the charger is where the shop vac is. You will only be vacuuming the car for a short period until she sees the wisdom in the charger location.

You will use the charger virtually every day. You use the shop vac — at most once a week? tell your passengers not to be slobs.

 

[cubicalclang]

How often do you use the shop vac? You're going to use the charger maybe a couple times a week (or you might be one of those plug the car in every night type of folks). Are you at the beach / dealing with sand in floormats everywhere multiple times a week? I get the problem with sand, it's rough, and coarse, and it gets everywhere, but...think about this logically.

 

[Sophias_dad]

The solution seems to be either to move the shop vac down a bit and mount the HPWC above it, or replace the wife

 

[STS-134]

How often do you use the shop vac? You're going to use the charger maybe a couple times a week (or you might be one of those plug the car in every night type of folks).

You really should be plugging in every night to reduce average depth of discharge.

 

[tangible1]

You really should be plugging in every night to reduce average depth of discharge.

here we go

 

[thefisch]

The solution seems to be either to move the shop vac down a bit and mount the HPWC above it, or replace the wife

I think we will just go with option C and move

 

[thefisch]

How often do you use the shop vac? You're going to use the charger maybe a couple times a week (or you might be one of those plug the car in every night type of folks). Are you at the beach / dealing with sand in floormats everywhere multiple times a week? I get the problem with sand, it's rough, and coarse, and it gets everywhere, but...think about this logically.

I've already gone over the options with my wife and she wants the shop vac to stay there to use whenever needed - that's all the logic I need. There is no problem with mounting the charger on the panel wall and routing the cable overhead closer to the charge point. Install is simpler and less expensive by a long shot.

 

[bhzmark]

I've already gone over the options with my wife and she wants the shop vac to stay there to use whenever needed - that's all the logic I need. There is no problem with mounting the charger on the panel wall and routing the cable overhead closer to the charge point. Install is simpler and less expensive by a long shot.

Smh

 

[Art84]

If it was me, I would not install where the Shoplift is, since that means the connector's cable would actually have to run behind your MY to the back left charging port. My garage is setup very similar to yours and I placed the wall connector where you proposed in option 2, so it only needs a few feet of cable to connect (and will not ever go behind your car). How would that setup create risk of driving over the cable, am I misunderstanding something? Also, your MY cannot go into reverse with the cable plugged in.

In regards to that location, have you checked with an electrician to see if they can discretely run the power up the wall, through the ceiling and back down to your preferred location? Most pros can figure that out or can at least run conduit along those same lines (avoiding door ding space concerns). To clarify, there is no reason why the conduit or cable needs to come out from the bottom of the circuit box, it should be able to go up and along the ceiling (and possibly in the ceiling).

I have my MY next to the wall with the connector and my wife has a Model 3 parked on the other side. That setup allows for me to also charge her car, although that is a scenario where the cable is running behind my Model Y. Fortunately the wall connector is right in front of me when I go to my car and the green light turns to a blue light if it is plugged in. I can also clearly see the cable running out of the wall connector to her car. Here is a photo of my setup...

OP, here is a good suggestion, with a photo.
In your case, it will be also easy and convenient setup. Put conduit along the wall from the breaker box and install charger closer to the garage door.

 

[thefisch]

OP, here is a good suggestion, with a photo.
In your case, it will be also easy and convenient setup. Put conduit along the wall from the breaker box and install charger closer to the garage door.

Yeah, that is the location we will likely put it in and then route the cable over the single door to reach the car on the other side. Much easier and less expensive install and will work for our purposes.

 

[STS-134]

Wife is adamant that the shop vac stays there. Looked at moving up or down but there isn't enough clearance to wrap the hoses around each of them.

Move shop vac down 1-2 feet and put EVSE above it.

 

[Spinkick]

Put evse inside a fake shop vac. That is the spot!

 

[Art84]

Yeah, that is the location we will likely put it in and then route the cable over the single door to reach the car on the other side. Much easier and less expensive install and will work for our purposes.

Why route the cable over the door?
Just let it rest on the charger... when you charge the car that's near the charger - super easy and comfortable plugin. When charge the other car - the cable will just lie down on the floor.
If cable will be routed over the door, how will you reach a charge port of the car that close to the charger? I think 24ft cable will not be enough for all this cross-routing of hanging cable.

 

[J Neptune]

Cleanest install would be by the circuit box.

 

[thefisch]

Move shop vac down 1-2 feet and put EVSE above it.

To not have the shop vac hoses dragging on the floor, the top of the vac needs to be at least 3.5 feet off the floor. I would need to leave some clearance above it to allow for the cables to not getting in each others way. And the shop vac protrudes from the wall a lot more than the wall connector. So I would have to mount the wall connector so the top of it is about 6 feet from the floor. That is too high for us even without leaning over the shop vac.

Putting the charger below the vac brings other issues of routing power around the shop vac and the charger's minimum clearance of 18 inches from the floor. So the shop vac ends up too high on the wall.

Even if we moved the shop vac, that installation location for the charger has it's own challenges. The attic above that area has no clearance given there is a valley in the roof right over there. And the romex would have to be upgraded to 4 gauge for a 60 amp breaker so the parts costs would be a lot more than 6 gauge thhn. Staying on the panel wall with conduit is much simpler and affordable.

Why route the cable over the door?
Just let it rest on the charger... when you charge the car that's near the charger - super easy and comfortable plugin. When charge the other car - the cable will just lie down on the floor.
If cable will be routed over the door, how will you reach a charge port of the car that close to the charger? I think 24ft cable will not be enough for all this cross-routing of hanging cable.

You're right we can do that if we are parking in the garage side closest to the panel. If we park on the other side, then I can route over the garage door following some of the examples shared on page 1. The charging handle can be available near the shop vac without having to move that.

Cleanest install would be by the circuit box.

Agreed but I am going to have it down that wall about 10 feet towards the garage opening with a horizontal conduit run. I wanted to put the charger right next to the panel but it's going to be too close to the driver side door.

 

[STS-134]

To not have the shop vac hoses dragging on the floor, the top of the vac needs to be at least 3.5 feet off the floor.

Shop vac hoses are not flags. They won't be damaged and nobody will be offended if they touch the floor.

Even if we moved the shop vac, that installation location for the charger has it's own challenges. The attic above that area has no clearance given there is a valley in the roof right over there. And the romex would have to be upgraded to 4 gauge for a 60 amp breaker so the parts costs would be a lot more than 6 gauge thhn. Staying on the panel wall with conduit is much simpler and affordable.

Why can't you put a conduit on the ceiling? That's WAY less ugly than a charging cable dangling from the garage door tracks, which I wouldn't want to touch for multiple reasons, the biggest one being that it's ugly, followed by the fact that the cable likely won't reach, followed by if you get those garage doors replaced you'll need to take everything down.

 

[thefisch]

Why can't you put a conduit on the ceiling? That's WAY less ugly than a charging cable dangling from the garage door tracks, which I wouldn't want to touch for multiple reasons, the biggest one being that it's ugly, followed by the fact that the cable likely won't reach, followed by if you get those garage doors replaced you'll need to take everything down.

Not going to hang from door tracks - decided against that as that install location was closer to my driver's door which leaves less clearance walking by on that side and less flexbility to charge in driveway if needed. Going to mount it closer to the garage door and go up and over similar to the example in this other thread. Whether the final length is hung on the wall by shop vac or suspended from ceiling with a spring balancer will be determined later on.

 

[J Neptune]

To not have the shop vac hoses dragging on the floor, the top of the vac needs to be at least 3.5 feet off the floor. I would need to leave some clearance above it to allow for the cables to not getting in each others way. And the shop vac protrudes from the wall a lot more than the wall connector. So I would have to mount the wall connector so the top of it is about 6 feet from the floor. That is too high for us even without leaning over the shop vac.

Putting the charger below the vac brings other issues of routing power around the shop vac and the charger's minimum clearance of 18 inches from the floor. So the shop vac ends up too high on the wall.

Even if we moved the shop vac, that installation location for the charger has it's own challenges. The attic above that area has no clearance given there is a valley in the roof right over there. And the romex would have to be upgraded to 4 gauge for a 60 amp breaker so the parts costs would be a lot more than 6 gauge thhn. Staying on the panel wall with conduit is much simpler and affordable.



You're right we can do that if we are parking in the garage side closest to the panel. If we park on the other side, then I can route over the garage door following some of the examples shared on page 1. The charging handle can be available near the shop vac without having to move that.



Agreed but I am going to have it down that wall about 10 feet towards the garage opening with a horizontal conduit run. I wanted to put the charger right next to the panel but it's going to be too close to the driver side door.

Absolutely. Install close to the garage door, especially if you park front end in. Definitely don’t install near the doors where you can hit the charger with your door.

 

[Art84]

You're right we can do that if we are parking in the garage side closest to the panel. If we park on the other side, then I can route over the garage door following some of the examples shared on page 1. The charging handle can be available near the shop vac without having to move that.

Do you have one EV or two?
If just one, then just install on the wall near the garage doors and always park EV in the left car spot. This is how we do in our garage.

If you have two EVs, and want to share one charger, a cleaner setup definitely would be at the location of the vacuum. And alternatively, use the initial wall location but just occasionally you have a charging cable laying on the garage floor when the second car is charging

Putting the charging cable above the garage door will limit you to charging the car only on the right spot because the length of the cable will not be enough to reach a charging port for the car on the left spot.