EV Charging
Chevrolet EV Charger Installation
Chevy home charging installed for Bolt, Blazer, and Silverado EV.
What the job involves
Chevy home charging installed for Bolt, Blazer, and Silverado EV. Code has moved on this more than once, so what was legal when the house was built is often not what goes back in today.
The process is the same every time, which is what keeps it predictable. We see this go wrong most often when someone extended an existing circuit instead of running a new one.
How we handle it
- Load calculation before any equipment is ordered
- Continuous load sizing at 125 percent
- Mounted where the cable reaches without strain
- Tested at full draw before sign off
Doing this in the White Mountains
Houses up here run on long service drops and a lot of them were wired for a cabin load, not a full-time household.
Elevation, weather, and the age of the housing stock all change how this work goes here compared with a valley city. Equipment ages faster in this sun, monsoon surge is a real load on the system, and a lot of these houses were built as seasonal property and are now carrying full-time demand.
We do not upsell a panel when the problem is a loose neutral, and we do not patch a service that needs replacing.
Continuous load, and why it changes the wiring
A charger is legally a continuous load, which means it is expected to run at its full rating for three hours or more. The code responds by requiring the circuit to be sized at 125 percent of that rating. A 40 amp charger therefore wants a 50 amp circuit, and that is not a safety margin somebody invented. It is the difference between a conductor running warm and a conductor running hot for six hours every night.
This is also why a charger cannot simply share the dryer circuit, an arrangement that gets suggested surprisingly often. The dryer runs for 45 minutes. The charger runs all night. The wiring behaves completely differently under those two loads.
It is the most common place we see a well-meaning DIY install go wrong: correct amperage on paper, wrong assumption about duty cycle.
Mounting, cable, and the things you notice later
The install details that matter in year two are boring ones. Whether the cable reaches the charge port without stretching across the walkway. Whether the unit is mounted at a height where the cable hangs rather than coils on the floor. Whether you can still get past the car with the cable connected.
Outdoor installs need equipment rated for it, and at this elevation ultraviolet exposure is harder on plastics than the winter is. A unit rated for outdoor use in a mild climate is not automatically a unit that will look good here in five years.
We commission at full draw before leaving, with the vehicle connected where possible. A charger that energizes is not the same as a charger that delivers its rated current without faulting.
Conduit in the garage, and leaving room for later
Cable stapled across an unfinished garage wall is exposed to whatever a garage does to things: ladders, bicycles, a bumper, a shelf bracket. Physical protection is required where damage is likely, and in a garage it is likely. Conduit solves that, and it also solves the future.
Running a size larger than today’s circuit needs costs very little while the trench or the wall is open, and it means the next charger, or a second one, or a shop subpanel, is a pull rather than a demolition. Conduit is the cheapest thing on the job and the only thing that buys you options.
For a detached garage the same logic applies with more force, because the trench is most of the cost. Whatever goes in that ditch should be what you want there in fifteen years.
What you get
- LicensedC-11 #192532 and R-11 #192533
- PriceFirm, before the work starts
- Who shows upThe person who quoted it
- PermitsHandled where the job needs them
- AfterLabeled, documented, and cleaned up
If it is not right after we leave, we come back. That is the whole arrangement.
Conduit in the garage, and leaving room for later
Cable stapled across an unfinished garage wall is exposed to whatever a garage does to things: ladders, bicycles, a bumper, a shelf bracket. Physical protection is required where damage is likely, and in a garage it is likely. Conduit solves that, and it also solves the future.
Running a size larger than today’s circuit needs costs very little while the trench or the wall is open, and it means the next charger, or a second one, or a shop subpanel, is a pull rather than a demolition. Conduit is the cheapest thing on the job and the only thing that buys you options.
For a detached garage the same logic applies with more force, because the trench is most of the cost. Whatever goes in that ditch should be what you want there in fifteen years.
Choosing the amperage honestly
Bigger is not automatically better. A 48 amp charger on a house that can only support it by upgrading the service is often worse value than a 32 amp charger that fits the existing panel and still adds well over a hundred miles overnight.
The useful question is not how fast the charger can go, it is how many miles you drive in a day and how many hours the car sits at home. For almost every household the answer makes 32 or 40 amps entirely sufficient.
Where higher amperage genuinely earns its cost is a two-EV household, a long daily commute, or a vehicle with a very large battery that you regularly run low.
Questions we get
Level 1 or Level 2?
Level 1 is a standard outlet and adds a few miles an hour. Level 2 is 240 volt and fills overnight. For anyone driving daily, Level 2 is the real answer.
Can my house handle a charger?
That depends on your service size and what else is on it. A load calculation answers it in about twenty minutes and it is worth doing before you buy equipment.
Can the charger go outside?
Yes, with equipment rated for it. At this elevation the sun is as hard on outdoor gear as the cold is, so the rating matters.
Do you pull permits?
On anything that requires one, yes. Service work, panel changes, and new circuits generally do, and we handle the inspection as part of the job.
Will you explain what you found?
Always. You get told what the problem actually was, not just that it is handled.
Towns we cover
Based in Pinetop-Lakeside, covering about forty miles out across Navajo County and the western side of Apache County.
- Show LowOur second base. Panel work and service upgrades on the newer builds off Deuce of Clubs.
- Pinetop-LakesideHome ground. Cabin rewires, fixture work at cathedral-ceiling height, and same-week calls.
- SnowflakeLonger runs out to property on acreage, where the well pump and the house share one panel.
- TaylorOlder service entrances that predate the current code, and the corrections that go with them.
- Heber-OvergaardHeavy second-home territory. Freeze-season calls on places that sat empty since fall.
- LindenBetween Show Low and Pinetop. Remodel wiring and additions on established lots.
- GreerHighest elevation we cover. Generator and backup work for a road that closes in weather.
- ConchoWide-open lots on the Apache County side, often with a long feed from the meter to the house.
- OvergaardPonderosa country. Fixture and circuit work in cabins built across four decades.
- LakesideOlder lakefront cabins where the original wiring was never meant for today’s load.
- PinetopThe cabin core. Small jobs, one outlet or one switch, are most of what we do here.
- White Mountain LakeSeasonal places that need a look before the family arrives and after they leave.
Get it handled
Call (928) 358-2546 or send a message and we will work out what the job actually is.
See recent work or send the details and we will come look.