Anyone install a charger by boring/digging under concrete?

[strazin]

I'm looking to install a charger for my condo and my parking spot is ~ 30 feet away from my apartment. Spoke to a few electricians and they said the only way to properly set up a charger would be to run wire from my apartment down the side of the building and then bore/tunnel it under the asphalt/driveway pavement for the whole 30 feet. Then on the other side I guess install a HPWC charger on a post or a NEMA 14-50 outlet.

They couldn't even quote me a price Does anyone have experience with such a similar install? What kind of price can I expect? Any advice?

 

[eprosenx]

I'm looking to install a charger for my condo and my parking spot is ~ 30 feet away from my apartment. Spoke to a few electricians and they said the only way to properly set up a charger would be to run wire from my apartment down the side of the building and then bore/tunnel it under the asphalt/driveway pavement for the whole 30 feet. Then on the other side I guess install a HPWC charger on a post or a NEMA 14-50 outlet.

They couldn't even quote me a price Does anyone have experience with such a similar install? What kind of price can I expect? Any advice?

Boring is often doable (depending on what else there is to hit around there), but it is generally a different contractor from an electrician (which is why they can't quote it easily). Mobilization costs (overhead) is quite high to bring out a boring machine.

30' is really short though. In many cases it may be cheaper to just dig and then pay for restoration of concrete/asphalt.

Once the conduit is in, the electrical work is probably the easy part.

 

[233.3]

I had a underground conduit installed with one of these several years ago. I did not pay for it so I do not know the cost but they went 30-40 feet and they were done in a few hours. It took longer to dig the holes (one at each end) than to run the tool between them.

 

[Rottenapplr]

Wow I can’t even imagine the cost. The lynwe’re looking to charge just 2.5-3k for the 200amp wall upgrade at my house. I can’t even imagine 30 foot trench. Not trying to rain on your parade but do you really need to charge every night, there’s no other alternatives? Because if there isn’t I don’t think EV fit ones scenario. I mean I’m guessing 10k to make adjustments to a property you don’t own doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. I’d rather move to a different place with better electricity available. Like close to the space etc... that or just get a different car for right now.

Edit: you used condo in one part of the post then apartment at another sentence. So if it’s a condo obviously you have more invested in it than an apartment and perhaps that would make sense to invest in this project.

 

[notAnExpert]

Does anyone have experience with such a similar install? What kind of price can I expect? Any advice?

I have run across this situation three times, but not for 30 feet.

Once was for running a new sewage line under a span of about 10 feet of concrete walkway. My plumber did this. Another was under about 6 feet span of concrete walkway for electrical. I did this myself. In both those cases, we were able to use a pipe and high pressure water to make a tunnel. Neither one took long, may be 2-3 hours.

Surely 30 feet would be a bit harder, but if the soil is friendly, it may not be too bad. Perhaps you can try a DIY project and see if it works. You will need plenty of non paved space on either side of the driveway to be able to tunnel though. Do you have room?

In my third instance (which was for installing myTesla Wall Connector), I didn’t have space around the driveway. So I had to cut the concrete slab, dig a trench, lay the conduit, and then redo the concrete. It was a lot more work than tunneling. I also had to rent a machine for cutting.

If you don’t want to do this yourself, try some cheap plumbing / sewage guy. They trench and tunnel a lot. Good luck. Let us know how the project goes. It is very satisfying in the end to hang that Wall Connector once all the hard work is done

 

[MrMassTransit]

The run down the side of the building and into a parking lot sounds a bit like my install. Thankfully, my parking lot was gravel, so the only tunneling that needed to be done was under about 4 feet of sidewalk. However, I had a much longer run from the meters - about 110 feet. My basic install cost (using an electrician that had an insured trenching crew on staff) was $4.2k, although I added a 120v outlet to the setup which pushed the cost to $5k due to the need for a subpanel and additional wiring. Given you're in NYC and the longer amount of tunneling required, I'd ballpark your cost at $6-9k for the full install. If you get someone other an electrical firm to handle the tunneling, remember that the conduit must be buried at least 18" deep and consider inspection requirements: here in DC some inspectors are pretty strict and want to be able to measure the depth of the conduit for the inspection. As a result, the firm I used installed vertical pieces of PVC along the conduit so an inspector could stick their measuring tape in and determine the depth.

While I agree that a DIY approach going to be the cheapest, with this being a condo I'm not sure if that would even be workable. I imagine many condo boards are going to be a bit skeptical of the idea to begin with, let alone granting permission for an owner to start tunneling in their parking lot with no experience. I went with a very reputable firm for the end to end install in part to assuage any concerns in that regard. Had I owned a home, I'd have gladly done the trenching work myself.

Do you have any photos or details you could share of your setup? Given the requirement for tunneling, I'm guessing you have an outdoor lot with no walls/support structures that you could attach conduit to for an above-ground install?

 

[SSedan]

Couple years ago I had a natural gas line run, utility company paid for most of it but I had to pay for a few feet just due to length and it wasn't that bad other than the imbeciles hit the electrical service to my garage.......that is a separate story.

Get a few quotes, maybe offer some scheduling flexibility and see what happens, might not be bad as you fear.

 

[Bloomj]

Boring is not that bad but I would expect $2000 based on what I had to pay to get water from the other side of the road. I would think the issue might be getting permission from the apartment complex to do the work.

 

[KJD]

Any chance that you could swap parking spaces with someone else that is closer to and electrical outlet ?

Any chance you could do a separate overhead service with a new meter ?

Here is how another condo owner did an install and it turned out well. Might be some ideas here you could use.

Successful completion of Condo charging installation – Now I can charge at home!

 

[strazin]

Thank you all for the responses!

Will clear up a few details.
1. Own the place, so not installing into a rental. But also don't really want to pay more then 3-4K either.
2. There is concrete all around, no soft ground, so tunneling under the concrete would be impossible. The only would would be to cut straight into it and then seal/fix it up
3. Condo board has given OK, I will fix everything up/just as before
4. Will want to hire pros for 100% of this process. I'm not qualified.

I've attached a drawing of my exact setup. Everything around the parking lot is concrete, so boring under will be impossible.

 

[MrMassTransit]

Ah, cutting and filling in the concrete shouldn't be that bad. Could probably be done for under $4-5k, maybe under 3k if you get lucky. My recommendation is still finding a electrical firm that is familiar with such a project, but you might save some money having a separate firm run the conduit - just make sure they can advise you on inspection requirements once the service is installed.

Not sure if NYC has any tax credits for a EVSE install, but I was able to get a $1k credit from DC for my install.