What was your cost to have a 240V plug installed?

Hi everyone, I got a quote today from an electrician to have a 240V plug installed for my EVSE. Pricing breakdown is below, wondering if everyone else's experience was similar or if I should shop around more?

Labor - $648.88
Material - $358.56
Tax - $52.56
Total - $1060

I think some of the labor comes from the fact that the wiring will have to run up into my attic and over about 30 feet to the garage. At least I'm doing it in February in Phoenix, lol.

Thanks!

That's a a little high even considering the extra work, but we can't see the job from here. ;-) You can also look into re-purposing a dedicated 120 volt garage circuit, if you have one, by converting that cable to 240 volts. This will greatly limit the amperage of the EVSE you can use, though.

I was recently quoted about $1000 in Denver, CO to install a hardwired Clipper Creek HCS-50. Price did not include the Clipper Creek EVSE. It's a pretty long run of >50 ft of wire/conduit to garage.

http://www.myrav4ev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=8264#p8264 was to install a hardwired Aerovironment (now Webasto) 30 amp L2 EVSE that was "free". No thanks. I still don't have one and yet a Leaf has been my primary car since end of July 2013 until ~2 weeks ago. Now have a Bolt, Leaf and no more ICEVs.

Even in 2011, I'd heard of as high as $6K.

FWIW:

https://www.homeadvisor.com/cost/garages/install-an-electric-vehicle-charging-station/

Personally, I wouldn't even mention the fact that you are wanting to charge an EV. Just get quotes for an electric dryer (for 30A circuit, if your planning on using an EVSE operating at <= 26A) or for an electric range (50A circuit) - tell the person that you are thinking of boxing in the garage and turning it into a suite - whatever I think you'll be surprised by how much cheaper the quote will be, compared to when you ask for a circuit for an EVSE for electric car charging.

I'm not saying that there is wide spread intentional scamming among electricians, but I think that a lot of electricians who have yet to do their first EV charging install are padding out their quotes, in case there's a bit of a learning curve...

I'll be surprised if it takes more than 2-3 hours to complete the job, so $200 - $250 for labor is fair. The 6/3 NM-B wiring should be less than $3 per foot, it sounds like your run would be around 50ft, so the cost of the wiring itself should be less than $200. But if conduit is needed (ie not run inside the walls) then the material costs would be higher. So, the material cost doesn't sound too far off.

Assuming a generous $100 per hour, the quoted labor cost means at least 6-1/2 hours of work is anticipated - sounds excessive, but you'll have a better idea than us how challenging the "run up into my attic and over about 30 feet to the garage" run might be...

Run the wire in conduit yourself, and pay the electrician to hook up to the panel and install the socket you provide.

For $1,000 you are getting off easy.
You should probably ask what it would cost just to put a sub panel in the garage.
My question is why are you paying $270 for a breaker, maybe 40 feet of wire, a receptacle box and receptacle.
For that much I would get a sub panel and one of those sweet 50, 30 and 20 amp RV receptacle boxs and wire it up so that all 3 circuits could run at the same time.

For me just to drop a receptacle runs under $100. At my current house it cost me 25 feet of 6/2 with ground and a single 50 amp RV receptacle box.
I added a small RV receptacle box by my garage door. It's technically a "dedicated welding circuit", 6 gauge on a 60 amp breaker for my plasma cutter or small welder. But some times I plug my 12 amp evse into it, shhhhhhh. Don't tell any one.

But if you have to hire an electrician and your panel is full, overloaded or obsolete a panel and service upgrade could cost between $2,500 and $4,000. Just wanting to install a 240v circuit for an evse could open up a huge can of worms.

At my current house I had to replace the service drop mast as it was nicely bent, assuming a tree fell on it some years back. The main panel was full so I added 2 sub panels. I completely filled the indoor subpanel with existing circuits. For the outside sub I had plenty of room so I installed a 125 amp 12 space 24 circuit QO panel.
A service drop conduit replacement runs up to $1,000 if it's going on insurance. To split a main to a sub panel typically runs around $1,200. Then ran a 3rd sub to the garage. Just to have an electrician run a sub panel some where normally doesn't cost too much, until you have it filled up.
So after I did the equivalent of thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of electrical work I was able to drop in a charging circuit for about $50.

For my own personal charging network at my rental house I pulled 10/3 with ground to a 14L-30 RV box when I installed my inverter split heat pump. I upgraded that house years ago to a 200 amp 40 space QO main panel so I could wire in anything I wanted.
Maybe $70 total to do that one not counting the new panel and svs upgrade I did a few years prior.
But I would have needed to upgrade the panel and service since the obsolete main panel was full.
To hire an electrician to do a service and panel upgrade starts at about $2,500 around here.

At my baby mama house I installed a dedicated outside receptacle and box with a nema 6-20 and 5-20 combination duplex receptacle on a 20 amp breaker outside of the main panel.
Cost was almost nothing as I used left over junk I had laying around.
No panel or service up grades needed since a big homeline panel was installed in the 90s and it still has spaces in it.
In my experience this is unusual.

In 2005 I moved back from overs seas to Langley. As i was moving into a rental house some electricians were there changing out the main panel. I asked the electricians doing it how much they were charging the rental company for this panel change. They said $4,500 and it took them about 4 hours to do it. Thats when I knew I was in the wrong line of work.

alozzy said:

I'm not saying that there is wide spread intentional scamming among electricians.

Click to expand...

We understand how scared and mystified people are of the electricity running throughout their homes and full take advantage of this.

The alternative is buy a 2017 code book and figure it out your self.

If anyone thinks electricians charge too much to do a main and service upgrade, how do you think the electricians turn the power off coming into your house from the service overhead or service lateral transformer so they can work on it?