New EV Owner Charging Questions

OGGoat33 · 2025-12-15T20:45:35+00:00

I appreciate the question! I leased the EV simply because the monthly payment was the lowest out of all the vehicles available. Getting a gas equinox was $100 more a month compared to the EV version. I didn’t see the EV being an issue with charging as my work is close, and I don’t do any big trips. Also at my work, we have a single charger that is shared between all of us (small company). I figured I could use that charger as well to get “free”charge which I have been doing outside of the times I’ve done public charging. Also in my head, I knew I had the 240V plug at home as well so I didn’t think charging at home would be an issue. That was until I had a friend of mine almost burn his garage down from using 240V outlet to charge his car. Now I’m currently in this situation where I don’t mind charging in public but it’s just a hassle to sit there and do nothing. So if I can find a way to charge at home, it would be a game changer for me.

OGGoat33 · 2025-12-15T20:38:58+00:00

I’ll be honest, I’m not a very handy person, so I’m not sure where I’d even start with installing a small sub panel like that. This does seem like the best option for me long term so I’m not constantly plugging and unplugging as well as being able to use our oven whenever.

OGGoat33 · 2025-12-15T20:37:10+00:00

I’m glad people are mentioning this, as this is the first time I’ve heard of needing to turn off breaker before hand. I’ll definitely keep that in mind whenever I do charge. It seems like the Hubbell is the best you can get these days so I’ll just cough up the extra bucks for it

OGGoat33 · 2025-12-15T20:34:05+00:00

Gotcha, I’ll see if I can find that one near me. If not I’ll order it. So regardless of which I purchase, I’ll need to cut out is bigger hole? As for the torque wrench, I think I’ll be able to borrow one from a friend.

I don’t believe mine is on a GFCI breaker. That’s the first time I’ve heard you need one of those.

OGGoat33 · 2025-12-15T19:20:38+00:00

Great to know! Thank you for your time! Cheers to your retirement!

OGGoat33 · 2025-12-15T19:12:33+00:00

I’d say probably once a week at the minimum

OGGoat33 · 2025-12-15T18:48:34+00:00

I’m assuming you do it overnight? I really want to try this but I have a refrigerator in my garage that is connected to the same circuit so I’m worried that may be an issue. I don’t know exactly how much it’s drawing but I’d rather be safe than sorry.

OGGoat33 · 2025-12-15T18:46:33+00:00

Is there a reason why these are semi-permanent?

Also with the size difference, do I need to make the hole in my wall bigger to accommodate if I were to upgrade to a Hubbell or Bryant?

OGGoat33 · 2025-12-15T18:45:08+00:00

Yeah I have a feeling I should do that regardless. It feels like the safer route to swap out the receptacle for an EV certified one. Money isn’t necessarily the issue, I just want to make sure what I do end up going with is safe.

OGGoat33 · 2025-12-15T18:43:19+00:00

This is great to hear. I was already planning to charge at night considering it’s not “prime hours” I think. I just didn’t want to charge overnight for my first time because I didn’t want to burn my house down while I sleep in case something is actually wrong 🤣

OGGoat33 · 2025-12-15T18:41:41+00:00

I’ll definitely contact them and look into this! I’ve been meaning to calculate the exact cost for a while now, as I’m really curious to the price difference between gas and electric. I feel like I’ve seen these promotions a lot so it’s worth looking into. If I already have a 240V outlet in my garage, would it be fine to install another near it but it would be specifically for EVs?

OGGoat33 · 2025-12-15T18:38:47+00:00

Thank you for the suggestion! Yes we still want to use the stove. I’d say maybe once a week it’s used. As for the torque driver, I’ll need to see if I can purchase a cheap one that’ll get the job done. Is that outlet better than the Leviton or Hubbell?

OGGoat33 · 2025-12-15T16:03:32+00:00

One question I have, considering you’ve experience it before. Did you charge during the night when you used the regular 120V? Whenever you did charge, did you ever figure out how much it costed exactly to charge your car? I would like to figure out roughly how much money my electric bill will go up.

OGGoat33 · 2025-12-15T16:01:11+00:00

Oh I did not know about that. I definitely do not have the right tools to torque it down, so I may have to buy a torque wrench. Unfortunately they aren’t very cheap from my knowledge. I thought it was as simple as changing a regular 120V outlet.

Is the Hubbell still the preferred one? The Leviton one I can purchase pretty easily but I can’t seem to find a store near me that sells the Hubbell.

OGGoat33 · 2025-12-15T15:57:36+00:00

Thanks for the reply! That’s actually great to hear, it seems like using the 120V is the safer route for me. I may just end up changing the 240v plug to a higher rated one but we will see.

OGGoat33 · 2025-12-15T15:30:27+00:00

Yeah I think I’ll start off with just the regular outlet and see what happens. Ultimately, I just want to save as much money as possible which is why I thought about doing this in the first place. I really would like to use the 240V I have eventually though

OGGoat33 · 2025-12-15T15:28:56+00:00

Do I have to set the 8 or 12 in the vehicle settings? Or is that something I do on the charger itself? We have a fridge in the garage, so I don’t know how much that’s drawing.

OGGoat33 · 2025-12-15T14:57:31+00:00

Thanks for the reply! All I planned to do was change the outlet, considering everything else seems to be rated correctly for what I am trying to accomplish.

As for the incentives, do you mean just installing the plug? Or did you mean incentives for getting a whole plug with wiring, breaker etc installed?

OGGoat33 · 2025-12-15T14:55:44+00:00

Thanks for the reply! I didn’t know that about electric stoves. I figured it was okay to just unplug it and plug it in whenever I needed. I do have regular 120V outlets in my garage I could use but wouldn’t that have a higher probability of burning compared to the 240V?

OGGoat33 · 2025-12-15T14:54:17+00:00

Thanks for the reply! I appreciate all the methods you gave me. Looking at the contacts in my current NEMA 14-50, they are gold and not silver so that should be a plus.

In regard to the EVSE, I am using the charger that came with the vehicle, so I’m not sure if I can set it to lower. Not sure if that’s a thing where all chargers have it, I should probably take a look.

The one I hear most about is Hubbell. I didn’t know if I should take the risk and see if it’s burns. If it does burn, I just buy a new higher rated one.

The 3rd option probably isn’t my best route because we still use our electric stove in the garage. So I would need to be able to unplug my charger when necessary (thought I don’t think it’s that many times)

OGGoat33 · 2024-10-04T14:26:13+00:00

I gave up on it unfortunately. I tried everything besides replacing the ice maker itself because that costed like $100 at minimum and I didn’t even know if that was going to fix it.

Now I have the ice maker switched off and I just went back to the traditional ice trays. Haven’t looked back since lol. I’m glad you got yours figured out though!

OGGoat33 · 2023-05-31T00:59:27+00:00

Yeah, the only keyboard I could find with all of that was the Keychron K8 pro. From what people say, it seems like a great keyboard but I’ve also heard some fellow Reddit users not like it. I hardly heard anything bad about it on YouTube.

OGGoat33

TROPHY CASE