In this episode, John Maher speaks with Joe Malone, a master electrician with Cape Cod Heat Pumps and Electrical, about installing EV chargers at home. Joe explains the different types of chargers, from basic outlets to level 2 chargers, and the importance of a dedicated circuit breaker. They discuss the benefits of home charging, such as convenience and control, compared to public charging stations. Joe also covers considerations for families with multiple EVs, smart charging features, and maintenance needs. For more information, visit Cape Cod Heat Pumps and Electrical.
John Maher: Hi, I am John Maher, and I’m here today with Joe Malone, Master Electrician at Cape Cod Heat Pumps and Electrical, an HVAC and electrical contractor in Marstons Mills, Massachusetts on Cape Cod, focused on detail, quality, and professionalism. Our topic today is EV Charger installation. Welcome, Joe.
Joe Malone: Hey, John.
Common Types of EV Chargers
Maher: Joe, what types of EV chargers do you typically install, and how do you ensure compatibility with various types of electric vehicles?
Malone: People are having us do anywhere from a standard outlet in the wall in their garage all the way up through what they call level two charging, which is an integrated charger that mounts to the wall and has a dedicated power circuit and a dedicated cord that you plug into your car and charge it overnight and everything’s great. There’s a lot of in-between, but the best way to go is definitely that level two charging.
Is a Dedicated Circuit Breaker Required for EV Chargers?
Maher: When you go to do the electric and install that, is that like installing say a washer and dryer or a large appliance in your home, where you have to get it on a dedicated circuit breaker or something like that?
Malone: Yeah, absolutely. It is a large electrical device in your house. It’s a great way to think of it as like adding a new clothes dryer somewhere that’s going to run for four or five hours.
Installation Requirements for EV Chargers
Maher: What are the installation requirements for EV chargers?
Malone: They do have to have their own dedicated power circuit going to them. If you just put in a regular plug or what they call a 50-amp plug, it’s a certain configuration of an adapter that comes with a lot of the electric vehicles. It almost looks like a giant dryer plug. If you have an electric dryer or an electric stove, it looks the same. Those have to be ground-fault protected because the cars are grounded themselves, and if it’s not hooked up, you can actually electrify the metal body of the vehicle, which nobody wants. It’s not a good thing.
If you get one of the level two chargers, the majority of the brands actually have that technology built into the charger itself, as opposed to back at the circuit breaker level, and they’re a lot more reliable in that fashion because the charger itself can stop the current flow if they detect any issue right away, as opposed to letting it go until the breaker reacts to it. Most of these electric vehicles are fairly expensive and it’s a pretty investment to just let all the electronics hope for the best on a circuit breaker.
Will EV Chargers Shut Off When The Battery is Full?
Maher: The electronics in a car will work such that when you’re charging it and it gets full charged, it’ll shut off so it’s not continually drawing the electricity once the car’s full.
Malone: Yeah, exactly, and the majority of the brands of electric vehicles these days have a lot of that decision-making going on inside the computer in the car itself where they will, they know on average… After you plug it in a few times, it will make the decision and it will say, “We know this person has the car plugged in from six PM to six AM almost every day of every week,” So the car understands that it has about 12 hours to spread that charging across, so it won’t try to get 12 hours of charging done in one hour and just push, push, push, and cram all that power into the battery as quick as it can. It will slowly draw the power to make it as efficient as it possibly can.
EV Charging vs Cell Phone Charging
Maher: I’ve noticed that with my smartphone now that when I plug it in at night when I go to bed, it says, “We’ve optimized the charging so that it’ll be fully charged by six AM,” or something like that, so it’s similar to that.
Malone: Yeah, your car is now just a giant smartphone that goes fast.
Pros & Cons of Charging an EV at Home
Maher: Can you talk a little bit about some of the pros and cons of home charging of an electric vehicle versus using public charging stations?
Malone: Yeah. When you charge at home, it’s on your time. It’s you’re paying for it, whether you pay for a public charging station or you’re paying in your monthly electric bill, but you have the peace of mind of knowing the piece of equipment that is connected to your car is up to date, it’s safe, it’s meant for your car. It’s not just a universal, hope-for-the-best, and connect an adapter at a public station. You don’t have to be concerned if somebody were to unplug your car at the charging station or interrupt the charge.
You know what’s going on with your car at your house, as opposed to leaving it somewhere or hoping for the best. Some folks will go to the public charging station, plug it in, go out for dinner, and come back and find there was a fault. So now the two hours that they just spent out at dinner hoping the car would charge was all for nothing.
Can an EV Charger Charge Multiple Cars?
Maher: Do you have situations where a family might have a couple of electric vehicles, maybe a husband and wife both have them? Do they use the same charger or do you have to install two different chargers, especially if they’re maybe two different brands of car?
Malone: Generally, it comes down to a convenience and a use. A lot of these electric cars get 300 or 400 miles of range, and it’s similar to your car. If you work 15 miles from home, there’s a 30-mile round trip. If you don’t go and go to a bunch of kids’ activities all over New England and that type of stuff, generally, you can charge your car once every three or four days, as opposed to having to plug it in every single night.
So, people will make a decision, “Tonight’s my night, tomorrow night’s the spouse’s night,” those type of things. We’ll see that quite often. Even some of the brands, if they have the same brand of cars, some of them will have multiple power stations that are powered from the same circuit breaker and you can plug two charges in at the same time and the cars will actually talk to each other through the charger. If one of them needs to get 80% of its charge filled up and the other one only needs 20%, they’ll allocate the power as needed right then and there.
We do have some folks that one person has the electric pickup truck and the other one’s got a small sedan, so they choose to put in two separate charges and each one has their own parking bay in the garage and that’s the way it is, and here you go. Here’s two chargers.
Controlling Smart Charging Features
Maher: How do you control those types of smart charging features? Do these charges sometimes come with a connection to your smartphone where you could look and see, “My car’s at 70%” or “I’m going to switch it over to the second car,” or things like that?
Malone: Yeah, depending upon which brand you buy, some are better than others and some have more smart features than other ones do. A lot of the cars will also have the app that will talk back to your phone, so you can have multiple pathways to tackle it, but if you buy two of the same type of charger that’s connected to… ChargePoint is one of the big better name brands that’s out there. They have a user app that will let you have that full functionality and see which car’s drawing what for power, tell one to charge only between certain hours. You can control those decisions yourself if you want to or just let the app do its deal.
Maintenance and Troubleshooting of EV Chargers
Maher: Is there any maintenance or troubleshooting that you have to do with EV chargers or is it pretty much once you’ve installed it you’re set to go?
Malone: Again, the market for electric vehicle charging is fairly new in the last few years, so we haven’t seen many of them have any problems at all. Half the time that I’ve dealt… I’ve only dealt with a small handful of issues. A couple of them were the actual vehicle itself had a problem and it wasn’t the charger itself, and another one was the charger itself. The connector actually had come loose. Manufacturer warrantied it, they sent out a brand new one, we swapped it out, and everybody was happy.
Maher: But for the most part, you’re not really seeing a lot of issues with them?
Malone: No, they’re generally maintenance-free. It’s your cars are alerting you now to the fact that there may be a problem or there’s a charge issue. If you notice your car is not charging quite as fast, then you probably want to have someone a peek and start from the easiest side, which is the electrical side.
Maher: That’s all really great information, Joe. Thanks again for speaking with me today.
Malone: Thanks for having me.
Information About Cape Cod Heat Pumps and Electrical
Maher: For more information, you can visit the Cape Cod Heat Pumps and Electrical website at ccheatpumps.com or call (508) 833-HVAC. That’s (508) 833-4822.