Salt Lake County, Utah — call 801-644-9000.
A newer Draper house is generally well wired for the way it was originally drawn, and that is precisely the catch. Builders install to the plan and the budget in front of them, which often means a garage with a couple of general-purpose receptacles and a panel holding a modest number of spare slots. Nobody framed those garage walls anticipating a vehicle parked inside that would draw steadily for hours every night.
So the first question is not which charger to buy. It is a more basic one: what your panel has left, how far the garage sits from it, and whether a route exists that does not require opening finished drywall along the way. An electrician can answer those three questions in a single visit, and the answers usually narrow the equipment choice considerably before you have spent anything at all on hardware.
Chargers come in two broad varieties: versions that plug into a dedicated receptacle and versions that connect directly to the branch circuit behind the wall. Each approach carries trade-offs around portability, the protection required, and how the manufacturer intends the unit to be installed outdoors or in an unconditioned garage. The manufacturer's instructions form part of the installation requirements, so this choice affects the wiring behind the wall and not only your convenience.
The circuit itself has to be sized for continuous operation, which is a different exercise from sizing for a tool that runs hard for a minute at a time. Conductor size, breaker rating, the length of the run, and the ambient conditions in the garage all factor into it. This is exactly the calculation people get wrong when they treat a charger like an ordinary appliance cord and reach for whatever breaker happens to be free.
Households rarely stop at a single addition, and planning as though they will is a mistake. A second vehicle arrives, a heat pump replaces the furnace, the basement gains a kitchenette, or the garage picks up an air compressor and a welder. Each of those draws on the same service, and the order in which you add them often determines whether the last one turns out to be straightforward or unexpectedly expensive.
Talk through the whole list at the first visit, including the parts that are still two years away. An electrician can then recommend a panel arrangement, a conduit path, or a load management approach that leaves room instead of consuming it. Panel and service changes generally require a permit and an inspection, and your city's building department confirms exactly what applies at your address. Call 801-644-9000 before you order equipment.
Sometimes the panel has spare capacity and the garage sits close enough for a short run, which makes the job straightforward. Other times the panel is full, or the garage is on the far side of the house. A site visit settles it quickly, and the answer shapes both the equipment and the cost.
Ask what circuit size your service can support, whether the model you are considering can be installed the way you want it, where the unit would mount, and how the cable would be routed. Bring the manufacturer's specification sheet along. Those answers occasionally point you toward a different model entirely.
That is what a load calculation determines. Both are substantial continuous loads, and the total depends on the rest of your equipment as well. If the numbers do not leave room, the options usually include a service upgrade or a load management device that keeps the two from drawing at full capacity simultaneously.
A dead outlet, a breaker that will not stay set, lights that dim when the furnace kicks on. Each points somewhere specific. The work is tracing the circuit back to the loose connection, failed device, or overload behind it.
Learn more →Older houses were wired for a smaller electrical life than the one you are living. When a panel is full, obsolete, or undersized for what you keep adding, an upgrade replaces the service equipment and gives every circuit somewhere to go.
Learn more →A home charger is a large, continuous load, so the real question is never the charger. It is whether your panel has capacity and how far the run travels from panel to parking spot. Both get answered before anything is mounted.
Learn more →Get the fault traced properly. There is no fee to be matched with an electrician.
Call 801-644-9000A few details about what is happening and when is enough to point you in the right direction.