EV Charger Installation

A Level 1 charger — the cord that comes with most EVs, plugged into a standard 120V outlet — adds roughly 3-5 miles of range per hour, which is workable for very low daily mileage but too slow for most households. A Level 2 charger runs on a dedicated 240V circuit, typically 40A or 50A, and adds 20-40+ miles of range per hour depending on the vehicle and charger. For anyone charging daily, Level 2 is the practical choice, and it's what we install for the large majority of homeowners.

The real question isn't the charger itself — it's whether your electrical panel has room for a new 40-60A dedicated circuit without exceeding the panel's rated capacity. Older homes with 100A service and an electric range, electric dryer, and central air can already be close to fully loaded. We run the load calculation first: sometimes there's plenty of headroom, sometimes a load management device lets the charger share capacity safely with existing high-draw appliances, and sometimes a panel upgrade genuinely is the right call before charging is added.

Placement matters too. We plan the circuit route from the panel to the charger location — typically a garage wall, but sometimes an exterior driveway mount — accounting for the distance (which affects wire gauge), any concrete or masonry the conduit needs to cross, and where the vehicle actually parks so the cable reaches comfortably without running across a walkway.