Unique situation?

My life!

The switch cover seen in @Old Bear's posting is meant to be used as part of a workplace lockout/tagout (hazardous energy control) program. Imagine the switch controls equipment that would be dangerous to operate while someone is working on it. The worker puts his or her lock on the switch cover before starting and removes it only when finished. There are even special hasps and boxes, so if several workers are involved, each person can apply a separate lock, keeping the lockout from being removed until everyone agrees it’s safe.

Obviously, locks can be cut off easily enough, but in most companies, doing that without special authorization, usually involving a very senior manager, means immediate dismissal. Removing locks or tags without permission can also provoke, shall we say, a vigorous response from anyone who was thereby endangered.

For an outlet in a shared garage, the point of installing a locking switch or outlet cover isn’t to prevent determined theft, but rather just to remind everyone that the outlet isn’t available for general use, and to make it a crime (vandalism, if nothing else) to use without permission.

 

Most "lock-out" devices are installed for safety. For example, to prevent someone from energizing a piece of equipment which is being worked on by a technician. Or from turning off a circuit which powers lighted "exit" signs or emergency lights.



The OP seemed concerned that he'd prefer to restrict use of his charging circuit in his parking garage. This did not sound like a high-security issue but merely a way to discourage unauthorized use while allowing easy access for his own use.

 

As for your present appliances, they come from existing 2-pole breakers in the panel which you should be able to plainly see and ought to have labels. As with anything else in the universe, just because there isn't room for a new one doesn't mean there aren't any already there.

He could put in a couple tandem circuit breakers which would make room for a new 2-pole breaker. Just make sure you don't overload the panel. As long as the main breaker is sized for the bus bars, you should be fine.
Your Circuit Breaker Box is Full — Now What? | HomeTips

 

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

Seems like a new branch box could be added; play like there is a new apartment added somehow.

BUT.....why can't the new circuit be run from YOUR existing branch box ?
Too far away maybe ?
No good route to run the wires ??
There is no reason that can't be done, electrically, unless maybe it would exceed the capacity of the main breaker for your apartment.

Did you even ask about installing a 120 outlet ?
That might be the best that you can do.

 

The 115/120 VAC outlet has been standard for ......what......about a hundred years now.
I think that it is unlikely that vehicles in general will be produced without that option for maybe another hundred.


If you are REALLY serious about this, you may want to get a second opinion.
Something in his story doesn't quite sound right.......at least the translation that you are providing.

 

unfortunately, sam doesn't know much about electric vehicle charging.

it sounds like your out of luck on the 240v front, what the electrician said makes complete sense.

how much is the credit for 240v?

 

What the electrician is trying to tell you is that the service to your unit cannot handle the additional load. Even if there is room on the buss in the breaker box, the master breaker has to be able to handle the additional load. Adding an additional box for the new 220 is the only way to handle it, because it bypasses the existing service panel.

 

Without seeing your situation, I'm guessing that the electric utility room on your garage level contains meters for each unit. The meters each connect to a main breaker or disconnect switch which then feeds a separate conduit up to each unit where there is a distribution panel with various breakers for 120v and 240v circuits within each unit.

Because there is no distribution panel in the electric utility room, there is nowhere to tie in a new circuit there. The obvious solution is to put a breaker in the distribution panel in your unit and then run wiring back down to the garage level. But there probably is no easy way to route new wiring for this purpose -- although you could get lucky and there might be some way to do this. (I am visualizing a multi-story building where your unit is on an upper floor and anything run back down to the garage either has to run in an existing vertical "chase" or be fished through the walls of someone else's condo unit. i.e., not fun.)

The distribution panel in your unit probably has sufficient capacity to provide enough power for a L2 charger for your Prius Prime, but possibly not enough to charge a vehicle demanding 40 amps at 240 volts. This is also a consideration.

An alternative would be to install an entire distribution panel which would be connected to your meter in the electric utility room at a point just beyond the main breaker or disconnect switch serving your unit. Again, whether this is easy, difficult or impossible depends upon how things are physically configured in the utility room.

I'm not sure it makes any difference whether you want to install a 240v circuit or a 120v circuit because you're going to have the same problems tying it into your unit's meter. (You probably could tie a 120v outlet into the common area wiring in the garage -- but that would be billed to your condo association and that would be wrong!)

And, as Sam Spade 2 pointed out in post #28 above, it might be possible to add an entire meter and related circuits, just as if another unit were being added to the complex. In that event, it might make sense for the meter to be billed to the condo association just like common area lighting and to install one or more Chargepoint stations which would allow the association to collect money from anyone who wants to use the station(s). See: EV Charging for Apartments | ChargePoint

Please be aware that I am not an electrician or an electrical engineer. My background is in architecture and so I've spent a lot of time working with electricians and electrical engineers trying to solve problems. Sometimes you can come up with a creative solution -- and at other times you just need to decide if whatever you want to do is worth the dollar cost.

 

Show your electrician this picture and make him understand that are 2 hot lines summing 240 V.
Or show him this video...
If he still says no, find another one...
How-to: 240 volts when all you have is 120 volt outlets

 

Ultimately, if BEVs are adopted as widely as predicted, something like this may have to be done, anyway: in many buildings, the existing transformers and switchgear couldn’t handle the added load from a charging station for every parking space. The more important question, I think, is how to pay for it.

When it passed SB 1016 in 2018, the California Legislature didn’t address the problem of allocating the costs of building infrastructure upgrades fairly among early and late adopters, and I’m afraid this may become a substantial barrier to EV charging in condominium buildings. After the existing spare capacity—in switchgear, conduits, electrical rooms, and riser spaces—is used up by the early installations, which the law gives the condominium association a strong incentive to allow, further expansion may be stalled: no single unit owner would be willing to pay the entire cost of upgrading the service to the building, for example, and if there’s never a critical mass of owners all wanting to install charging stations at the same time and willing to share the costs, the investment may never happen.

 

I think that the most expedient thing, not being able to see what you have, would be to use the main breaker that comes off your meter and feeds your unit to instead feed a new sub panel. The sub panel can then have a breaker to feed your unit and another breaker to feed your new charging outlet. Something like this:


This is all contingent on a few things.

• Will the condo association agree to it?
• Is there a spot to mount the sub panel where the wires to your unit will reach?
• Is the main breaker box flush mounted or surface mounted. Flush mounting makes wire routing a royal pain.
• Will it be worth the expense.

 

If he can do that, it makes sense and is a lot simpler.

200 feet would be a long run and probably require a larger wire size to compensate distance (voltage drop), so you'd certainly be better off with the shorter connection at the meter.

Not sure how to interpret that. Do you mean that your HOA had a lower price from someone else, that your HOA thinks the $4,500 price is twice what it should be, or that your HOA thinks the estimated price is unrealistically low and should be $9,000?

If you're planning to stay in your condo for a number of years and to continue to own a plug-in electric vehicle, then the price might make sense. I doubt that you'd be adding $4,500 to the re-sale value of your condo or saving $4,500 on gasoline very quickly -- but you might benefit by being able to attract future condo buyers with electric vehicles. And we know that more and more people will be driving PHEVs and BEVs in the future and will be looking for places which have plug-in charging available.

 

According to this website, you can rewire entire house with 4000 usd.
Here is just a voltage loss calculator, good for you to know what wires you will need... (I made a calculation for 300 ft, with 50 A) you will lose 2.63 V, I think it's ok, knowing the charger has a very good stabilizer.
All the work will consist in digging a 200 ft long ditch and bury the wires in a PVC duct.

Instead of paying him 4500 usd, you can by me a 2 way plane ticket from Europe, and I can install all the breakers you need and wiring as long you want, and still can keep 2000 usd...