(Estimate) Single family house installation quote: is this reasonable?

[northernstar]

Hello forum.

I received a quote from a vendor for a single-family house installation.
The charger will be installed inside the garage, and it will be about 2~3 feet away from the breaker panel (outside the wall)

Can't tell if this is a reasonable quote or not.
The quote doesn't include the charger device.

 

[HariK]

Hello forum.

I received a quote from a vendor for a single-family house installation.
The charger will be installed inside the garage, and it will be about 2~3 feet away from the breaker panel (outside the wall)
View attachment 19582

Can't tell if this is a reasonable quote or not.
The quote doesn't include the charger device.wan

Ask them to install an outlet. Let them know that is ony 2 to 3 feet from the main breaker. There is no such thing as provisioning. If it is 80A charger, you will need hard wiring.
If it is 40A Lucid mobile charger, just a NEMA outlet with 50A breaker is all you need. Do not install a cheap outlet. Get https://americancableassemblies.com...-nema-14-50-female-black-125-250-volt-50-amp/

 

[SaratogaLefty]

Hello forum.

I received a quote from a vendor for a single-family house installation.
The charger will be installed inside the garage, and it will be about 2~3 feet away from the breaker panel (outside the wall)
View attachment 19582

Can't tell if this is a reasonable quote or not.
The quote doesn't include the charger device.

I bought the Lucid Connected Home Charging Station and had it installed in my garage (the breaker box is on the other side of the wall). They ran a 100 amp line and handled everything including the permit and the inspection. The LCHCS was just over $1200 and the installation was $2000. This charger puts out 19kW and charges the Lucid at right around 80 miles every hour. We also use it on the Genesis GV60 but on that car it only puts out 11kW.

 

[Sid432]

I’m not sure the permit costs that much. If it does, the inspection is part of it. Muncipality charges for taking permit out and will close the permit after inspection is done, atleast in NJ.

I would say check with your municipality to be sure. Also, you can take the quote from QMerit. Lucid recommends using them.

 

[idiot900]

Qmerit just refers you to a local electrician. I guess their value add is vetting companies, but it will most likely be a little cheaper to find the electrician yourself.

 

[dcase99]

I used qmerit. It was very easy and it was done in 2 days. $1100 which included new breakers, conduit and about 100 feet of wire. The actual charger was $600 extra

 

[Cosmo Cruz]

Yes that is about right for 20 feet of the correct size cable. Yes you could get it for less. It would help to know specifics, like, what charger you are going to use, what spec the cable is (100 amp narrows it to 4 cable sizes...not all of which support 100 amps). Can you trust your electrician? My electrician put in a "100 amp" cable that won't support 80 amps. I had to limit my charger to 72 amps. Ask questions, then check the "electricians" here to confirm. Distance from service box to charger, type of charger, hard-wired or plug (very important to use the correct plug!} , size of cable, length of run; all matter. There is much discussion of these points scattered about this website.

We can't really answer your question. Your quote seems in the ballpark.

The inspector doesn't look at the work but does sign-off (need this for insurance when the house burns down). You need to have this documented by the township/city. I made sure my electrician used the correct torque on the connections (he had to leave the job to get the correct torque tool) = did everything by the "book". My Lucid and charger are in the garage directly under the bedroom. I roughed-in the charger and breaker box in the garage (electricians don't do this stuff well) but did not understand that he was using the "least" cable he could, instead of what I asked. He was an "expert" on EVs, because he was "thinking about getting a Tesla". I don't know if he's ever installed a charger before; certainly not a Lucid charger.
He apparently did not care/understand that my intention was to use the circuit to eventually "car-to-house", in which case I would need a proper sized cable (and other equipment). Your quote should specify cable size & length, breaker rating, etc. "Install EV charger" is not a quote. I have to wonder since you did not mention these details which are necessary to know if your quote is reasonable.

I had to run ~75 feet of 100 amp cable to the garage, but the kid used 4 AWG, when he should have used 1 AWG. I did not know, since I checked here after the fact. I would have specified 1AWG had I known. see cable guide here
Cable size and run adds significantly to the cost.
Again, it depends on what charger you use. You don't need this much power if you intend to charge overnight in one direction. 40 amp chargers are more than enough for this.

Lots of posts on this topic here. Worth your time to find them and sort thru who's the electrician and who's just chiming in. I'm not the electrician.


Congratulations. A home charger will change your life / increase the re-sale value of your home.

 

[borski]

Hello forum.

I received a quote from a vendor for a single-family house installation.
The charger will be installed inside the garage, and it will be about 2~3 feet away from the breaker panel (outside the wall)
View attachment 19582

Can't tell if this is a reasonable quote or not.
The quote doesn't include the charger device.

That looks reasonable to me.

Ask them to install an outlet. Let them know that is ony 2 to 3 feet from the main breaker. There is no such thing as provisioning. If it is 80A charger, you will need hard wiring.
If it is 40A Lucid mobile charger, just a NEMA outlet with 50A breaker is all you need. Do not install a cheap outlet. Get https://americancableassemblies.com...-nema-14-50-female-black-125-250-volt-50-amp/

Couldn't disagree more. Hardwire it. There is basically no good reason, imho, to limit yourself to 40A on a 14-50. If you hardwire it, you'll already get 48A on a 60A breaker which is already better and what most EVSEs can do. Plus, it's safer and you get the smart scheduling / monitoring capabilities most EVSEs have.

I’m not sure the permit costs that much. If it does, the inspection is part of it. Muncipality charges for taking permit out and will close the permit after inspection is done, atleast in NJ.

I would say check with your municipality to be sure. Also, you can take the quote from QMerit. Lucid recommends using them.

It can. Here in Cupertino the permit was $450. The second $250 they're charging isn't for the city to do an inspection; you're right. It's for the electrician coordinating to be there for the inspection, scheduling it, etc., until the inspection is a PASS. You're basically just paying for the electrician's time there. You could get rid of that, but then you'd have to handle the inspection (and any resultant questions) yourself.

 

[northernstar]

Ask them to install an outlet. Let them know that is ony 2 to 3 feet from the main breaker. There is no such thing as provisioning. If it is 80A charger, you will need hard wiring.
If it is 40A Lucid mobile charger, just a NEMA outlet with 50A breaker is all you need. Do not install a cheap outlet. Get https://americancableassemblies.com...-nema-14-50-female-black-125-250-volt-50-amp/

Thanks for the input.
I’m thinking Lucid 80 amp charger + hardwired & extra outlet at the moment.

 

[northernstar]

I bought the Lucid Connected Home Charging Station and had it installed in my garage (the breaker box is on the other side of the wall). They ran a 100 amp line and handled everything including the permit and the inspection. The LCHCS was just over $1200 and the installation was $2000. This charger puts out 19kW and charges the Lucid at right around 80 miles every hour. We also use it on the Genesis GV60 but on that car it only puts out 11kW.

Thanks for the input. Contacted other local licensed electrician and definitely cheaper than the quote.
Seems like Level 2 charging at 80 amp is still safe for the battery… at least what I’ve researched and read so far.

 

[northernstar]

I’m not sure the permit costs that much. If it does, the inspection is part of it. Muncipality charges for taking permit out and will close the permit after inspection is done, atleast in NJ.

I would say check with your municipality to be sure. Also, you can take the quote from QMerit. Lucid recommends using them.

The local EV electrician said I don’t need to get the permit from the city… seems like optional at best? I might to ask few other local electricians for the correct/proper answer here in Cali.

 

[northernstar]

Qmerit just refers you to a local electrician. I guess their value add is vetting companies, but it will most likely be a little cheaper to find the electrician yourself.

Agreed.. a local EV electrician’s price quote was at least 2/3 less !!!

 

[northernstar]

Yes that is about right for 20 feet of the correct size cable. Yes you could get it for less. It would help to know specifics, like, what charger you are going to use, what spec the cable is (100 amp narrows it to 4 cable sizes...not all of which support 100 amps). Can you trust your electrician? My electrician put in a "100 amp" cable that won't support 80 amps. I had to limit my charger to 72 amps. Ask questions, then check the "electricians" here to confirm. Distance from service box to charger, type of charger, hard-wired or plug (very important to use the correct plug!} , size of cable, length of run; all matter. There is much discussion of these points scattered about this website.

We can't really answer your question. Your quote seems in the ballpark.

The inspector doesn't look at the work but does sign-off (need this for insurance when the house burns down). You need to have this documented by the township/city. I made sure my electrician used the correct torque on the connections (he had to leave the job to get the correct torque tool) = did everything by the "book". My Lucid and charger are in the garage directly under the bedroom. I roughed-in the charger and breaker box in the garage (electricians don't do this stuff well) but did not understand that he was using the "least" cable he could, instead of what I asked. He was an "expert" on EVs, because he was "thinking about getting a Tesla". I don't know if he's ever installed a charger before; certainly not a Lucid charger.
He apparently did not care/understand that my intention was to use the circuit to eventually "car-to-house", in which case I would need a proper sized cable (and other equipment). Your quote should specify cable size & length, breaker rating, etc. "Install EV charger" is not a quote. I have to wonder since you did not mention these details which are necessary to know if your quote is reasonable.

I had to run ~75 feet of 100 amp cable to the garage, but the kid used 4 AWG, when he should have used 1 AWG. I did not know, since I checked here after the fact. I would have specified 1AWG had I known. see cable guide here
Cable size and run adds significantly to the cost.
Again, it depends on what charger you use. You don't need this much power if you intend to charge overnight in one direction. 40 amp chargers are more than enough for this.

Lots of posts on this topic here. Worth your time to find them and sort thru who's the electrician and who's just chiming in. I'm not the electrician.


Congratulations. A home charger will change your life / increase the re-sale value of your home.

Thank you. Aside from the price & fee quotes, I’ll definitely have to ask more questions to the quote-advisor and also to the local EV electrician regarding the cable size and able to support the Lucid’s 80 amp charger.

 

[ajroxstar]

My charger installation was quite challenging. I have a finished basement (no drop ceiling) and my breaker panel is on the opposite side of the garage about 100 feet away. I had installers quote me $5000 for the install (not including the charger itself). They said they had to dig a trench across my lawn to bury the 6 gauge wire underground and then go into the garage and breaker panel from the side wall. I ended up renting a trencher from tractor supply for $300 and dug the trench and buried two 6g wires and a ground wire and then hired an electrician to terminate the ends. Ended up using a Tesla universal charger. Wire cost me about $200. Electrician charged me $350 for the terminations. So all in about $850 for the install. But took us all day Saturday. lol. But lots of money saved!

 

[borski]

Thanks for the input. Contacted other local licensed electrician and definitely cheaper than the quote.
Seems like Level 2 charging at 80 amp is still safe for the battery… at least what I’ve researched and read so far.

Level 2 charging at almost any rate will be safe for the battery. To be clear, so is DCFC; DCFC doesn't 'harm' the battery, it just degrades it slightly faster if done consistently. Don't stress too much about battery loss; we have not seen any complains about it thus far, and Lucid seems to have a pretty conservative charging curve on DCFC chargers.

 

[borski]

The local EV electrician said I don’t need to get the permit from the city… seems like optional at best? I might to ask few other local electricians for the correct/proper answer here in Cali.

They're wrong. Find a different electrician. You can pull the permit yourself, but you have to pull a permit. Like anything else, nobody is going to force you, but: if your house burns down because your EVSE caught fire and it was unpermitted work, insurance may not even cover you; not having a permit is considered negligence. Selling the house with unpermitted work is also a hassle. Moreover, the permit leads to an inspection, which is the city verifying that your very smart and capable electrician did not make a mistake which anyone can do.

Electricians don't have to get a permit, sure. They don't own the house. You have to deal with the consequences though, and CA doesn't play around with that; it's very annoying, but does help save lives. Did I mention it's annoying?

Anybody can do electrical work in CA. Major improvements are supposed to be inspected by the local city or county building inspectors. They make sure it is done per code and safe or you fail inspection.

Jobs up to $1000 can be done by unlicensed workers not affiliated with the contractors board in CA. Over $1000 they should have a contractors license but it doesn’t have to be an electrical contractor’s license.

A handyman can do basic jobs like a switch or receptacle replacement or install a new light fixture. That doesn't mean it was done correctly; I regularly found issues with an outlet tester and ended up having to fix them myself. Best to have electrical work done by experienced professionals and, if possible, by licensed electrical contractors and even better inspected by a building inspector if a larger job.

For an EVSE installation, you have to get a permit, and ensure your electrician is a licensed electrician. They cost more, but they cost a lot less than a burnt-down house or garage your insurance won't pay for.

Paging @Worldwide Beagle and @DeaneG in case I said anything incorrect.

 

[northernstar]

Level 2 charging at almost any rate will be safe for the battery. To be clear, so is DCFC; DCFC doesn't 'harm' the battery, it just degrades it slightly faster if done consistently. Don't stress too much about battery loss; we have not seen any complains about it thus far, and Lucid seems to have a pretty conservative charging curve on DCFC chargers.

lol so many new acronyms to learn and research..
Thanks for the more info about DCFC. I feel comfortable going with the Lucid charger. Owning a car shouldn’t be an “investment”, but It’s been a big investment. Financial, home-improvement, and driving life-style wise.
But the driving feeling is amazing. Lucid made me love the drive-to-thrill-feeling again.

 

[borski]

For the record, I was facing the same conundrum.

Willow Glen Electric (aka EV Experts), which QMerit introduced me to (QMerit has since bought them), were not cheap by any stretch of the imagination. But they were efficient, spectacular at their job, knew what to do going in, made smart adjustments and edits as they discovered the plan wouldn't work exactly as spec'd, and then showed up for both inspections after we failed the first one due to something I absolutely would not have known about or thought about: to make a long story short, turns out you have to add bracing to any beams that you have cut a hole in where the diameter of the hole is more then 25% (50%? I can't remember) of the beam. I didn't know that; the electricians did, but forgot. They came back and fixed it (and even fixed a couple other spots we saw had the same issue). Inspection passed.

I had two competing quotes, both for less than half the price. One refused to pull the permit and told me I had to do it myself. One said 'it isn't important, don't worry about it' and I nixed him immeditely.

 

[borski]

lol so many new acronyms to learn and research..
Thanks for the more info about DCFC. I feel comfortable going with the Lucid charger. Owning a car shouldn’t be an “investment”, but It’s been a big investment. Financial, home-improvement, and driving life-style wise.
But the driving feeling is amazing. Lucid made me love the drive-to-thrill-feeling again.

Haha, depends on what you value! If driving is something you love and is a fun hobby, then it's okay for it to be an investment (of sorts). I buy really high-powered computers, because I like pushing them to the limits in various ways. They're an investment, sort of, but in what I love to do.

Some people buy expensive musical instruments.

To each their own.

 

[northernstar]

They're wrong. Find a different electrician. You can pull the permit yourself, but you have to pull a permit. Like anything else, nobody is going to force you, but: if your house burns down because your EVSE caught fire and it was unpermitted work, insurance may not even cover you; not having a permit is considered negligence. Selling the house with unpermitted work is also a hassle. Moreover, the permit leads to an inspection, which is the city verifying that your very smart and capable electrician did not make a mistake which anyone can do.

Electricians don't have to get a permit, sure. They don't own the house. You have to deal with the consequences though, and CA doesn't play around with that; it's very annoying, but does help save lives. Did I mention it's annoying?

Anybody can do electrical work in CA. Major improvements are supposed to be inspected by the local city or county building inspectors. They make sure it is done per code and safe or you fail inspection.

Jobs up to $1000 can be done by unlicensed workers not affiliated with the contractors board in CA. Over $1000 they should have a contractors license but it doesn’t have to be an electrical contractor’s license.

A handyman can do basic jobs like a switch or receptacle replacement or install a new light fixture. That doesn't mean it was done correctly; I regularly found issues with an outlet tester and ended up having to fix them myself. Best to have electrical work done by experienced professionals and, if possible, by licensed electrical contractors and even better inspected by a building inspector if a larger job.

For an EVSE installation, you have to get a permit, and ensure your electrician is a licensed electrician. They cost more, but they cost a lot less than a burnt-down house or garage your insurance won't pay for.

Paging @Worldwide Beagle and @DeaneG in case I said anything incorrect.

Thank you for the additional info.
I'm reaching out to two more electricians... Hopefully at least one will be completely honest and factual. lol