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I tried to add EV chargers to my rental property

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Re: I tried to add EV chargers to my rental property

#91

Post by Robotbeat »

bhhaskin wrote: post #79
Robotbeat wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Charging at scale is just way easier & cheaper than deploying hydrogen infrastructure, and I don’t think people realize just how big of a difference there is. It takes approximately 4 times the electricity (when you include liquefaction, inefficiency of electrolysis, etc) to drive the same distance with hydrogen cars as with electric cars. And Hydrogen cars get about the same range on a tank as electric cars, but eve…

The US. department of energy is pushing to have $1 per kilogram by 2030. ($2 per kilogram by 2025). The Toyota Mirai can go 402 miles on 16.8kg of hydrogen. And it takes 5 minutes to fill up.

The actual cost of hydrogen filling stations in California was $10/kg BEFORE the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Now it’s higher.

Takes 5 minutes to fill up if the hydrogen is pre-cooled and you happen to be at the filling station (which is rare).

Re: I tried to add EV chargers to my rental property

#92

Post by frumper »

silisili wrote: post #71
cycrutchfield wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> everyone on planet earth in the same hemisphere trying to charge their cars during peak summer AC time Why do you keep parroting this nonsense? Virtually nobody charges their car at this time

I don't see how it's nonsense. Everyone keeps saying 'at night', but more realistically for most people, when they get home from work.

You plug in when you get home, and your car doesn’t actually charge until it’s scheduled…sometime later at night. Mine starts at 8pm. During the heatwave I bumped it to 10pm because it doesn’t really matter to me. It’s done charging in about 3 hours.

Re: I tried to add EV chargers to my rental property

#93

Post by socialismisok »

dagw wrote: post #59
socialismisok wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, especially if you are a landlord.

On the other hand, as a landlord it's not your health and safety you're gambling with. As long as your insurance company doesn't complain, spending a lot of money to decrease the risk of fire doesn't make financial sense.

[flagged]

Re: I tried to add EV chargers to my rental property

#94

Post by LinuxBender »

cammikebrown wrote: post #25
socialismisok wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, especially if you are a landlord.

They don’t because (in places like California at least) their property taxes go up if they do any significant upgrades

That is the same in my state of Wyoming. The assessors visit my property every year and ask what improvements I've made. Two weeks after I bought the property they showed up and went through a checklist with me that detailed everything they knew about the house. I did something taboo and brought them into the house because they listed something as "fair" that was "bad".

It's funny though, all of this is just for tax revenue. They don't care about electrical wiring, plumbing, etc... I am told that when a house is first built they will inspect the electrical but I do not believe them. I've had to fix dozens of incorrectly wired sockets and really janky wiring in the circuit breaker panel and missing grounding connections.

Re: I tried to add EV chargers to my rental property

#95

Post by LinuxBender »

oliwarner wrote: post #86
oceanplexian wrote: post #41

I lived in a ranch-style home in California. Literally added a new breaker, ran 30’ of Romex rated for 50A, and wired up an EV charger in about 2-3 hours. It’s not rocket science. Now, obviously some panels don’t have the space, or the service to the house isn’t enough amps but if that’s a case why aren’t you upgrading a 50 year-old electrical panel anyway? It sounds like OP had a bunch of deferred electrical mainten…

> It’s not rocket science And an earth rod, right? Anyone can stick a breaker in, run some cable, but it takes the rocket scientists to consider neutral fault conditions, causing potential between your home, charger, car and literal earth. It might not apply to you. Your charger might have built in protection (many don't) or your supply might be grounded to the literal earth… but this is why we have building regs and…

If they ran the standard 4 wire cable one of the wires will be a grounding wire that goes back to the panel. The panel should already have an earth ground and grounding rod(s). Adding a second grounding rod anywhere else would violate code in most states and potentially create a grounding loop and fire hazard.

To correctly add more grounding rods in multiple locations would require a common ground bus where all grounding rods are inter-connected to an oversized grounding bus cable or bus bar that is independent of the circuit panel wiring. This is rare to find in a home however. This is more common in industrial buildings that have high power and high voltage equipment. In this setup every grounding rod has to be independently tested with a megger prior to being connected to the bus.

Re: I tried to add EV chargers to my rental property

#96

Post by rconti »

voisin wrote: post #89
socialismisok wrote: post #4

"I'd have to bring my electrical systems up to code and that's expensive for my 80 year old house" Well, yeah. I suppose it would be. I'm a bit surprised this is a surprise to the landlord. Also, many of the costs here are looming anyways. It's a matter of when, not if, the electrical needs updating to meet code.

> I'm a bit surprised this is a surprise to the landlord. Also, many of the costs here are looming anyways. It's a matter of when, not if, the electrical needs updating to meet code. I see this all the time. “Investors” buy real estate by assuming repairs and maintenance to be minimal and then pocketing every dime of excess cash created by the property. Then, over time when the windows need to be replaced or the roof…

You don't have to spot them a mile away, the article plainly says the landlord used to occupy the duplex until their family grew too large for it.

Re: I tried to add EV chargers to my rental property

#97

Post by rconti »

natch wrote: post #12

Profanity alert. Don’t read this if you are sensitive. You. Do. Fucking. Not. Need. An EV charger, to charge your EV. A 110 or 220 outlet with a cord and an adapter will work just fine. Apologies for the US centric terminology but I expect the situation is roughly the same (though numbers vary) elsewhere. We did TWO Teslas in an apartment for two years sharing (alternating cars) a single plug of a single 110 outlet.…

That only works if you have a short commute. I've charged my Tesla 3 maybe 3 times on 110 and it's a dumpster fire. One time parked at an AirBnB hoping to gather enough juice over the course of a weekend to get useful range heading home while we carpooled with friends.

3 miles per hour of charging is simply not enough. 12h x 3mph = 36mi range added, and that's not enough to reliably expect even a 30 mile roundtrip, let alone any errands you might run. I'd say we go through easily 55-60 miles of range for a 42mi commute. Plus, you're charging at peak hours for part of that.

Obviously I'm not saying you're lying, you did it, that's great, but you sure weren't driving many miles in both cars.

Re: I tried to add EV chargers to my rental property

#98

Post by voisin »

rconti wrote: post #96
voisin wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm a bit surprised this is a surprise to the landlord. Also, many of the costs here are looming anyways. It's a matter of when, not if, the electrical needs updating to meet code. I see this all the time. “Investors” buy real estate by assuming repairs and maintenance to be minimal and then pocketing every dime of excess cash created by the property. Then, over time when the windows need to be replaced or the roof…

You don't have to spot them a mile away, the article plainly says the landlord used to occupy the duplex until their family grew too large for it.

I writing more generally in response to the previous commenter’s statement about being surprised.

Re: I tried to add EV chargers to my rental property

#99

Post by Defitio »

silisili wrote: post #71
cycrutchfield wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> everyone on planet earth in the same hemisphere trying to charge their cars during peak summer AC time Why do you keep parroting this nonsense? Virtually nobody charges their car at this time

I don't see how it's nonsense. Everyone keeps saying 'at night', but more realistically for most people, when they get home from work.

My car itself can control when it's charging.

If you use anything more fancy on the PV side you can also control it on the other side.

And for more than one flat, load control is already available. We're I life we have 90 cars in the parking garage and there is a load controller

Re: I tried to add EV chargers to my rental property

#100

Post by dmitrygr »

We (the HOA) tried to do this in a townhouse complex (where I own one unit) in Mountain View. The story went similarly, except the last step. Instead of telling us that we’ll need to relocate meters, the utility told us that they consider our neighborhood “complete” and they will not be running a thicker line to our buildings to allow for the now-code-required 125A panels. So thanks to their laziness, we can never ever do any electrical work in any unit, since getting permits requires upgrades to current code, and the electrical company won’t do their part no matter what, and without their part, compliance with current code is impossible.
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