Nema 14-50 outlet install cost

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SageBrush said:
Flyct said:
The most common wiring error for 14-50 receptacles was in commercial buildings. The neutral straight slot was wired to a 3rd phase of a hot leg.
I'm still trying to follow what happened here.

I'm finding it hard to believe that an electrician would not know that they have 3 hot wires and a 3 phase distribution panel

I assume the industrial electricians weren’t familiar with 14-50R receptacles and were used to wiring 3 phase commercial appliances, thinking our device required 3 phase instead of split phase 240v. . When the tech was doing a pre installation site check and found receptacle miss-wired we would tape the proper receptacle wire diagram on the wall next to the outlet for the electrician to correct it. It was a simple correction, just mark the wire with white tape on both ends, move the wire at the breaker box end to the neutral buss bar and install a 2-pole breaker in place of a 3-pole breaker.

Some of our equipment required 480 v, 60 amp, 3 phase Hubbell receptacles. We would not supply that receptacle but give customer the part number required and have them order the expensive receptacle. We never found those miss wired.
 
Flyct said:
I assume the industrial electricians weren’t familiar with 14-50R receptacles and were used to wiring 3 phase commercial appliances, thinking our device required 3 phase instead of split phase 240v.

Hard to believe but so it seems.
 
I Finally got the nema 14-50 plug put into the garage together with the Charge Point

The garage is about 50 feet away from the main panel and the main panel was overpacked so we had to add a 100 AMP subpanel
He Charged me $1,200 and it took 2 of his workers about 6 hours to complete start to finish.
I got one other quote and they wanted $1,800
I had to pull the permit my self
There is also an Eversource rebate for $1,000 when you install the charge point with the plug.
I applied for it, so all set and done, hopefully my total cost with the charger and install will be like $800
I also will receive $200 over the summer from Eversource for allowing them to control my charger during peak usage. I already got $50 last month.

Thank you
 
Ital74 said:
the main panel was overpacked so we had to add a 100 AMP subpanel

I wonder how that was accomplished. Adding a sub-panel gives you more room for breakers, but in general it does not increase ampacity because the sub-panel is routed through the main panel. What is your main panel rating ?
 
SageBrush said:
Ital74 said:
the main panel was overpacked so we had to add a 100 AMP subpanel

I wonder how that was accomplished. Adding a sub-panel gives you more room for breakers, but in general it does not increase ampacity because the sub-panel is routed through the main panel. What is your main panel rating ?

If there are enough Amps available, but is not space to put breakers, a subpanel is installed.
 
WetEV said:
SageBrush said:
Ital74 said:
the main panel was overpacked so we had to add a 100 AMP subpanel

I wonder how that was accomplished. Adding a sub-panel gives you more room for breakers, but in general it does not increase ampacity because the sub-panel is routed through the main panel. What is your main panel rating ?

If there are enough Amps available, but is not space to put breakers, a subpanel is installed.

You are repeating what I said. There are other reasons, by the way. Probably the most common is to save labor and materials.

Now back to OP, did he have anything close to 100 Amps unused ampacity in his main panel ? Possible, but it sounds unusual, particularly since his panel was just about full.
 
SageBrush said:
Now back to OP, did he have anything close to 100 Amps unused ampacity in his main panel ?
Not particularly important. All that matters is that the calculated load on each feeder or panel be less than the feeder or panel rating. You might have a 100A service panel, and install a 100A subpanel supplied by a 100A feeder, for a variety of reasons: convenience, ease, future expansion, etc.

In fact, since there are different rules for calculating the load on a residential service than for a feeder supplying a subset of the residential load, you could easily have a situation where both the service and the subpanel have calculated loads near 100A, despite there being significant loads in the service panel.

Cheers, Wayne
 
wwhitney said:
SageBrush said:
Now back to OP, did he have anything close to 100 Amps unused ampacity in his main panel ?
Not particularly important. All that matters is that the calculated load on each feeder or panel be less than the feeder or panel rating. You might have a 100A service panel, and install a 100A subpanel supplied by a 100A feeder, for a variety of reasons: convenience, ease, future expansion, etc.

In fact, since there are different rules for calculating the load on a residential service than for a feeder supplying a subset of the residential load, you could easily have a situation where both the service and the subpanel have calculated loads near 100A, despite there being significant loads in the service panel.

Cheers, Wayne

Thanks for chiming in Wayne.

I may not understand your comment so I'll clarify: OP talked about a 14-50 receptacle being fed by the sub-panel rated for 100 Amps. We don't know what other new loads the sub-panel will supply so it seems fair to say the total new load will be at least 50 Amps but not more than 100 Amps. Some of the loads other than the EV may have a reduced load calculation amount. My earlier point was surprise that the main panel has that much load leeway.
 
SageBrush said:
My earlier point was surprise that the main panel has that much load leeway.
OK, my comments were a reaction to the perhaps misread implication that one would need "100A" of headroom in the main panel in order to install a 100A subpanel.

As to adding a 40A EVSE to an existing residential service, there's two issues: one is whether it will actually cause the main breaker to trip, the other is whether the NEC load calculations would allow it. On the former, you'd need to have a situation whether the actual current on, say, a 100A main breaker is already often 50A or higher, during the period where charging is going to be happening, for adding a 40A continuous load to cause the main breaker to trip. Most residential services just aren't that heavily loaded in practice (unless it already has another 40A EVSE on it).

As to the NEC, the optional method for dwelling unit load calculation would effectively apply a 40% load factor to the new load, since the load calculation procedure doesn't treat EVSEs specially. So the load calc would only need to have only 20A of headroom on it for adding a 40A continuous EVSE. And even if it doesn't, see the earlier paragraph, it's not so likely to be an issue in practice.

Cheers, Wayne
 
Hi All, sorry for the late reply. Just got back from a long trip to Italy :)
My main Panel is 200 AMP, as of now I had no issues.
That said I am in the process of adding an in-law and it might become an issue but I hope not.
I plan to run the addition off the subpanel, but if it comes an issue, I will move the 60AMP breaker to the main panel.

Thank you all for the help
 
I paid $650 to have a 14-50 outlet installed on a 50 amp circuit about 15 feet from my panel, running outside underground to a post. Would have cost less if I had built the post myself.
 
My cost was $300. I was fortunate in that an electrician friend was willing to work with me; he did the electrical stuff and I built the support box. It's a surface mount and needed shrouding.

BTW, you can often save money when hiring trades people by doing the cleanup or other peripheral tasks yourself.
 
We paid $250 to have the line run to our garage and outlet installed. Thankfully our garage was straight up from the box in our basement. House was built with 200amp line into it.
 
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