cts | Volt a Day | The Continuation of the Charger Installation October 30, 2010

There are two parts to my charger installation. One is the hookup of the actual charger itself (detailed in the Last Mile Finished post). The second is the proper selection of a rate from my utility company (Southern California Edison) and installation of whatever equipment is necessary to measure the kilowatts used at that rate.

Complicating the second matter, our house is equipped with a bunch of solar panels, so the whole house is on a Time Of Use (TOU) meter. And there is already an Electric Vehicle in the garage, so before we had the solar we had a TOU-EV meter installed which just measure the juice used for charging the car.

Further complicating that second portion, the adapter that they used to install that second meter lost its UL-listing or something equally catastrophic. So they needed to replace that meter installation.

But let’s put aside the meter muddle for the moment, since that doesn’t really deal directly with the Volt. The charger installation was completed by Mr. Electric and they had called for the electrical inspect from the City of Santa Monica to come sign off on the completed work.

A word about Santa Monica. And maybe about building inspectors in general. A friend of mine observed that if you put a badge on a ping pong ball it would develop an attitude. And building inspectors in general are riding herd on builders, who are often a wild-west-seat-of-the-pants bunch of folks trying to get a job done on less money and in less time than they had bid it They are, for the most part, enforcing rules that are “life safety issues.” If there isn’t a proper ground for a circuit box, that means that an electrical fire can start and kill the people in the house. If the inspector has signed off, they are allowing the building to be occupied and, in some sense, are certifying it to be in compliance. To be safe. This makes them pretty nit-picky.

On top of that, Santa Monica had a bad experience with development in the early 1980s when a bunch of contractors came through and built “lot killers,” where the house was built to the limits of the building lot creating an eyesore that killed the neighborhood feel of this little town. Hot on the heels of that, the Northridge Earthquake took out a bunch of buildings in Santa Monica (which has a sandy soil, the sort that liquifies when it shakes). Buildings that weren’t taken out required huge retrofits. FEMA came in and in LA County mandated a simplification to the building code and reduced the number of steel connections allowed in structural design. Santa Monica, in a panic, looked at the allowed 17 and said, “We’ll just allow these five,” further restricting building in the City. In short, they over-reacted twice and the current inspectors and building safety department are a result.

The inspector who showed up had a problem the moment he followed me into the garage. He wanted to see the innards of the EVSE charger so that he could check on how the ground wire was attached to the terminals. The unit is designed with six Torx screws holding on the cover. And the six screws are on the back, facing the wall. That means you need a really short-handled, special screw driver to remove the cover. I didn’t have it. So the inspector couldn’t see what he wanted. His face puckered to that “Now I’m going to have to come back out here...” expression.

Then he wanted to see inside of the circuit box. He took one look at the sort of breaker which had been added and said, “That breaker can’t be used in this box.” Although I had wielded the screwdriver to get the circuit box open, I had now come to the edge of my knowledge of the situation. I called Steve Lockhart at Mr. Electric and put him on with the inspector. I only heard the inspector’s end of the conversation, but right away he seemed agitated and said, “Well, then get them to sign off on your permit.” He listened a little more and said, “Fine. Get them to sign off on your permit then,” handed the phone back to me and stomped out of the garage.

I thought he had left. I talked to Steve for a little bit, who assured me he would get straightened out anything that needed to be straightened out, and I hung up. The inspector returned with a ticket for the inspection and explained what he was going to need.

He would need to see the inside of the charger on his next visit and would like to see the installation manual for the charger. The breaker in the subpanel would have to be replaced with one made by the same people who made the subpanel itself. The subpanel was now over six breakers so it would need a main disconnect. Because that meant it would be backfed, it would need some other part that he wrote the number down for it. After he left I called Mr. Electric and emailed a scan of the inspection notice to Steve. He said he’d get the parts and get right on it, not to worry.

We’re still waiting for the parts. After lunch you can read about the rest of the Meter Muddle.