my name's aaron massey from
mrfixitdiy.com and welcome back to
another episode of homeschool in this
episode i'm going to show you how to
install an electric vehicle charger and
more specifically a charger for a tesla
model 3.
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now it's no secret that gas prices have
been through the roof lately and that
has motivated a lot more people to
consider transitioning to an electric
vehicle my wife and i have had a tesla
model 3 for a few years now and
personally i love the car the purpose of
this video is not to debate the merits
of going electric but to show you how to
install an electric vehicle charger in
the event that you do decide to go
electric as with every video i do that
involves electricity i want to warn you
that working with your electrical panel
carries a risk of injury or death and
that i am not a licensed electrician
however i have a lot of experience
working with residential electricity and
i'm comfortable in my abilities to
operate with it safely i'm merely
showing you what is involved and if at
any point you're not comfortable doing
anything i'm demonstrating please call a
professional there's no sense in
injuring yourself or others just to save
a few bucks so with that being said
let's dive in for this install we're
going to be using some electrical
conduit some eight gauge stranded wire a
40 amp dual pole breaker a four inch
electrical box some screws or toggle
bolts some electrical tools including a
fish tape and wire strippers and a 50
amp 220 volt receptacle so here's a
basic amperage rating for the various
thicknesses of wiring you typically find
in your home now a 15 amp circuit
usually has 14 gauge wire a 20 amp
circuit has 12 gauge wire a 30 amp
circuit has 10 gauge wire a 40 amp
circuit is 8 gauge wire and a 50 amp
circuit is 6 gauge wire now above that a
60 amp or plus you get into the four
gauge and down but those are for big
services like sub panels and things like
that so we're going to avoid that for
this case i'm using a 40 amp breaker
with an 8 gauge wire because 8 gauge
wire is easier to pull through conduit
than 6 gauge wire the lower the gauge of
the wire the thicker it is and the more
amperage it can accommodate i've also
done this in the past using a 30 amp
circuit and 10 gauge wire the car is
going to charge either way however the
more power you give it the faster it's
going to charge so the first thing we
always want to do is turn off the power
at the panel now keep in mind that will
kill all the power in the house and all
the circuits however it doesn't stop the
power from coming into the panel so make
sure you still work carefully and avoid
the main leads coming into the panel you
don't want to touch any of that and get
electrocuted you'll need to make sure
your panel has space to accommodate the
breaker for the charger now in this case
i happen to know i have a few unused
breakers in the panel from previously
installed things so i'm going to be
repurposing a space in the breaker panel
that was previously used for an old
electric oven in this case i'm using a
square d panel which is usually written
somewhere on the panel itself so i'm
going to be using a square d breaker
that mounts in this panel now that we
know we have space for the breaker in
the panel next we're going to install
our box where we want it to be by
screwing it to the wall on a stud or
using toggle bolt anchors
from there we can start to install our
conduit
i'm using schedule 40 pvc conduit
because it's a little easier to work
with than metal conduit however i wanted
to use one inch diameter conduit but it
wasn't in stock at the time so i ended
up buying three quarter inch i'd
recommend using the one inch conduit so
that it's easier to pull the wiring
through
installing the conduit will depend on
your location but in this case i'm going
up the wall through a dividing wall into
a different portion of the garage and
then connecting it to the panel when you
get to a corner you can use one of these
90 degree junctions once you have the
majority of the conduit run connect it
to your panel box by removing one of the
panel knockouts and connecting it with a
connection and a nut
i recommend dry fitting the pieces and
making sure everything looks good to go
before going back and gluing everything
up you're going to use pvc glue for this
once your conduit is run now comes the
fun part of pulling your wiring the
thicker your wiring the more twists and
turns you have and the smaller your
conduit the harder it will be to pull
which is why i recommend using a
one-inch conduit and i elected to use
the eight gauge stranded wire stranded
wire is essential to be able to pull it
in this case i'll be pulling four wires
a red and a black which will be the two
hot wires each of these wires is 110
volts which adds up to the 220
a neutral wire and a ground wire
so feed the wire fish tape through the
conduit until it pops out the other side
it doesn't necessarily matter which
direction you pull from but in this case
i'm going to be pulling away from the
panel towards the ending box once your
fish tape has popped out the other end
you have to attach your wire to it which
involves stripping back a bunch of the
wiring twisting it together and making
everything as small as possible you also
don't want to be shy about taping the
hell out of it you're going to be
wrenching on it pretty good and you
don't want it to come apart halfway
through your conduit run if your wiring
is on a spool like this i recommend
taking your wire and putting it all on a
bar of some kind a half inch piece of
conduit works really good make sure all
the wiring is facing the same direction
and if you have an extra set of hands
have them hold the spools as you pull
from the other end to keep things tidy
and moving smoothly if your wiring is in
plastic packaging like this use a knife
to cut the middle of the packaging and
pull the wire from inside that way the
plastic will keep the wiring in place
and keep it manageable as you pull it
they also sell lubricant you can spray
into the conduit to help it slide better
which can be helpful in difficult
situations now the one thing i screwed
up on in this case is i tried to pull
the whole length of wire all at once now
if you have a 90 degree junction
anywhere in your run this is going to be
really hard to do especially if you're
pulling a bunch of wires i should have
started pulling from here got the wire
to this point unhooked everything and
then started over for the rest of the
way it's what i ended up doing anyway
but it was more difficult than it should
have been because i didn't do it the
right way in the first place and once i
pulled all the wire all the way through
the box i made sure i had about eight
inches sticking out of the box after
cutting off the waste from the fish tape
going back to the panel you need to make
sure you give yourself plenty of length
in the wiring to keep it tidy around the
outside edges of the panel box i happen
to notice someone previously installed
some wiring in this panel where a ground
and a neutral crossover in front of the
bars on the back of the panel because
they didn't leave themselves enough
slack which is a big no-no so it's
something i'm going to have to fix later
make sure you have enough slack in the
wiring to make the connections at the
neutral and ground bar and to your new
breaker for the hot wires once you know
you have enough length you can cut off
the excess
from there connect the white neutral
wire to the neutral bar in the panel
and connect the ground wire to the
ground bar in the panel next you're
going to connect each of the hot wires
to each of the connections on the bottom
of the breaker itself it doesn't matter
which one goes to which just make sure
they're stripped to the proper length
and tighten them down securely
then place the breaker into its location
in the panel and snap it back into place
from there we'll go back to our box on
the other end and make the connections
on the receptacle the two hot wires
which are the red and the black get
mounted to each of the brass terminals
on the receptacle while the white gets
connected to the silver terminal screw
and the ground gets connected to the
green terminal screw
make sure everything is tightened
securely and fold the wires back into
the box and screw the receptacle in
place
from there i'm going to close up the
electrical panel and turn the power back
on at the main breaker as well as my
newly installed breaker to test out the
circuit before i put the cover on the
box and make sure everything's good
so once i plug everything in it looks
like everything is working as it should
be so lastly i'm going to just add a
cover to the box and install this little
charger mount and cable management rack
that i found on amazon and that's it
i've got myself an electric vehicle
charger set up in the garage now you can
charge this car off a normal 110 volt
outlet if you have to but it takes a
really long time to charge and if you
drive a lot it might not be sufficient
for you this way the car charges
relatively quickly and you can top off
any time that you're at home so thanks
very much for checking out this video
and i hope you guys learned something
about installing a 220 volt circuit this
process can be used for more than just
electric vehicles and the install is
pretty similar for other 220 volt
circuits like
electric appliances heaters welders shop
tools etc once you get used to
understanding circuit and wiring sizes
you're not really limited to what you
can do if you want to check out some
more of my electrical home improvement
content make sure that you subscribe to
the channel and as always visit my
website at mrfixitdiy.com
thank you guys so much for watching i'll
see you next time
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you