$6,700 estimate to install Blink EVSE by Sunwest Electric

My friend just got an estimate to install Blink charger at his home and its whopping $6740. Since I am not an electrician (neither is my friend) I was wondering if someone can answer some questions.

1. Has anyone else got a similar estimate ?
2. Does EVproject let you get a second opinion from another contactor ?
3. Does anyone know any qualified electricians in San Diego area that can perform at least part of the upgrade (i.e. upgrade the panel to 200A; majority of the cost)

I will post the cost breakdown as soon I figure out how.

Here it is:

pksd1 said:

My friend just got an estimate to install Blink charger at his home and its whopping $6740. Since I am not an electrician (neither is my friend) I was wondering if someone can answer some questions.

1. Has anyone else got a similar estimate ?
2. Does EVproject let you get a second opinion from another contactor ?
3. Does anyone know any qualified electricians in San Diego area that can perform at least part of the upgrade (i.e. upgrade the panel to 200A; majority of the cost)

I will post the cost breakdown as soon I figure out how.

Click to expand...

Call Baker Electric. (760-745-2001) They did my install and were great. (for the record, I'm in the EVP, so I didn't pay anything. Baker certainly knows what they're doing, so I would expect costs to be reasonable.)

Tell them Jim Hamilton sent you.

Jimmydreams said:

pksd1 said:

My friend just got an estimate to install Blink charger at his home and its whopping $6740. Since I am not an electrician (neither is my friend) I was wondering if someone can answer some questions.

1. Has anyone else got a similar estimate ?
2. Does EVproject let you get a second opinion from another contactor ?
3. Does anyone know any qualified electricians in San Diego area that can perform at least part of the upgrade (i.e. upgrade the panel to 200A; majority of the cost)

I will post the cost breakdown as soon I figure out how.

Click to expand...

Call Baker Electric. (760-745-2001) They did my install and were great. (for the record, I'm in the EVP, so I didn't pay anything. Baker certainly knows what they're doing, so I would expect costs to be reasonable.)

Tell them Jim Hamilton sent you.

Click to expand...

Will do Jim...I will pass this on to my friend right now. He is in shock right now, not sure if he wants to go ahead with LEAf purchase anymore, and its coming in 7 days

that bill makes some sense. But it doesnt jibe with my experience with Sunwest and Ecotality.
I would call Ecotality.
I had a non-standard install that came in about $300 over the $1200 in free charges, and it did not include most of those charges.
However, he does need a new panel, which indicates the existing service is substandard. that could explain the issue and all the extra hourly charges and the need to have a city inspection.
He prolly has 100 amp service and no room to add the car to the existing load. that was not the case at my house.

Shouldn't there at least be a $1200 credit shown? Also a 200 amp panel is like $175 not $1100. I suggest you get quotes from several electricians to upgrade the service and then get a free EVSE install from the EV Project.

Another thing I noticed, they are charging him almost $1000 to repair stucco. How can it take 12 hours to repair stucco? He is thinking, instead of getting ripped of at the pump, he is going to get ripped off by the electicians. This can't be good for EV sales. I wonder how many people in future will get a bitter taste from buying an EV.

I thought to be approved for EVP they already required 200A panel ? Or ... whatever the requirements were/are ... they should have forseen that in this case EVP makes no sense.

LEAFer said:

I thought to be approved for EVP they already required 200A panel ? Or ... whatever the requirements were/are ... they should have forseen that in this case EVP makes no sense.

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The panel size is assessed by load in the house. If you dont have AC or electric stove and dryer, you can accommodate the Leaf with 100 amp service.

No way! The best parts are "inspection wait time hours" @ $60 per hour for 4 hours, $240 to wait around? And my favorite, "travel time" @ $62.50 per hour for 12 hours for a total of $750! Is this electric company in a different state??

pksd1 said:

My friend just got an estimate to install Blink charger at his home and its whopping $6740. Since I am not an electrician (neither is my friend) I was wondering if someone can answer some questions.

1. Has anyone else got a similar estimate ?
2. Does EVproject let you get a second opinion from another contactor ?
3. Does anyone know any qualified electricians in San Diego area that can perform at least part of the upgrade (i.e. upgrade the panel to 200A; majority of the cost)

Click to expand...

WOW! Doesn't even include costs for the EVSE or the meter. Must have been a heck of a stucco repair. The costs for Travel and Wait Times seem outrageous to me, maybe that's why my business should be reclassified as a non-profit.

But at least they gave him that all important 19¢ discount!!

Glenn

After seeing the breakdown, the electrician either A) doesn't really want to do the job or B) is completely clueless!!!

my experience was that if you want to question the estimate, Sunwest sends you to Ecotality.
in my case, there was no breakdown such as this, just a generalized explanation of why my install was not covered fully by the $1200 base that includes the charger and a simple install.

I also checked costs with AeroV and it was about the same in my case.
I agree that the travel, stucco repair, wait time, and a variety of other items seem, at least, nutty.
Stucco repair indicates to me that there is no crawl space or attic to run the 75 feet of conduit other than inside the stucco.
I have no idea if the new panel is overpriced. They are adding a subpanel for me and it is included in the $300 up with a good deal of conduit run through the crawl space..

thankyouOB said:

my experience was that if you want to question the estimate, Sunwest sends you to Ecotality.
in my case, there was no breakdown such as this, just a generalized explanation of why my install was not covered fully by the $1200 base that includes the charger and a simple install.

I also checked costs with AeroV and it was about the same in my case.
I agree that the travel, stucco repair, wait time, and a variety of other items seem nutty.
Stucco repair indicates to me that there is no crawl space or attic to run the 75 feet of conduit other than inside the stucco.
I have no idea if the new panel is overpriced. They are adding a subpanel for me and it is included in the $300 up with a good deal of conduit run through the crawl space..

Click to expand...

Adding a sub panel might be a good idea also. When we added some extra sqft to our house, we had two options, upgrade existing panel to 200A for $1200 or add a sub panel for $500. We opted for the sub-panel, and that might have saved us here too. My main panel(100A) was full, but maybe installers were able to move some the load to the sub panel (guessing here) to the sub-panel. And yes the main panel does have an A/C unit attached.

I manage commercial office buildings. For some of our trades, we have identified 1 contractor who we have excellent rapport with, and consistently will do the job cheaper/better than others.

But for most, and this includes electrical, we bid out anything more than a simple repair to 2 - 3 electrical companies. We tell them that we want a BID, not an estimate. We let them know we are getting more than 1 bid. We don't do more than three bidders, because if the contractor knows his chances of getting the job are less than 1/3 they lose interest fast.

Also, the highest bidder risks not getting called to bid future jobs. This way we have identified the cheapest/best contractors for most stuff that comes up.

In your case, you should get 2 - 3 more bids, at least for the panel and bringing the wire out to the EVSE location. Your phone book probably has too many places to call. If you bought your home new, you might call the contractor and find out who he would recommend. If you have any friends in real estate, they often manage rentals and thus know who does residential electrical work. They can steer you to the cheapest/best contractors in your immediate vicinity.

You didn't mention this, but are you in WiFi range? You might need to have them pull some cat 5e for you at the same time.

I had a great experience with Sunwest and everyone there so I'm surprised by this. I suspect that there is something that we don't know about this particular installation...

However, in any event, I'm not sure you can use anyone other than the designated electrical contractor for a EV Project install.

There was no charge for my installation, by the way.

I had a new panel install AND the EVSE install (EV project) and my out-of-pocket was $880. I'm in Seattle, not San Diego, but this price seems absurdly high... but notice it includes everything including the mast and meter. But, TRAVEL TIME $750 either absurd or this friend lives in the middle of nowhere!

mogur said:

I had a great experience with Sunwest and everyone there so I'm surprised by this. I suspect that there is something that we don't know about this particular installation...

However, in any event, I'm not sure you can use anyone other than the designated electrical contractor for a EV Project install.

There was no charge for my installation, by the way.

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My install was also free by Sunwest, so I am surprised by the estimate also. I am sure there is something unique about the install, but some of the charges seem absurd. My friend lives about 10-12 miles from me. Getting few more estimates should clear that up one way or the other. But I don't blame him or anyone else in this situation for walking away from purchasing an EV.

cashu2 said:

No way! The best parts are "inspection wait time hours" @ $60 per hour for 4 hours, $240 to wait around? And my favorite, "travel time" @ $62.50 per hour for 12 hours for a total of $750! Is this electric company in a different state??

Click to expand...

Yes, this is a big red flag, how are they traveling for 12 hours?

EVDRIVER said:

Yes, this is a big red flag, how are they traveling for 12 hours?

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Sunwest is an Orange County company, and the OP is in San Diego. It is about a 90 minute commute, depending on traffic. They must be estimating about 4 round trips to complete the job, maybe?

I found it odd that Ecotality had to go to an OC contractor to get installs done in San Diego, especially when there are electricians sitting on their hands by the score right now due to the downturn in construction here, but Sunwest was also assigned as my EVP contractor and did my assessment, which was determined to be free within the EVP guidelines. Baker Electric seems to be the only other contractor ever mentioned for San Diego. Sure it may take a little training, but why couldn't more contractors have been recruited? There are electricians begging for work all over the place right now. My brother-in-law is one of them.

As a former general contractor myself, I have to say there is some fat in that bid. If one of my subs submitted it, I would assume they were telling me "We don't really want or need this job, but we'll do it if you pay us enough" and I would get another bid, from someone closer and hungrier.

As a somewhat useless datapoint, since it was probably 12 years ago now and prices have gone WAY up, I upgraded the service to my house, which was built in 1947 w/ 110V overhead service to a fuse box, to a 220V 3-wire overhead service for about $1200 out of pocket. This included the new panel, 2" galvanized mast and roof jack, new ground stake, 100-amp main and ten individual circuit breakers, 12' of conduit and wiring to shunt from the old fuse box to the new panel, and a 75' run of new external conduit out of the garage to the laundry room, to provide some new circuits and distribute loads that were causing tripping in the kitchen. Permit costs were about $175, IIRC, at the time. Of course I just hired an electrician friend of mine on an hourly basis, and did it myself one weekend, arranged all the permitting, inspections and SDG&E work myself, and there was no cost for my labor or P&O.
YMMV,
TT

For the past two years, any trade connected with construction cannot be trusted. They are all in desperate financial shape and will do anything to get as much money on every job that they can. I would have thought that contractors would be more careful to write accurate and fair estimates in fear of losing a job entirely. But no. I had a furnace guy come out the start of winter. I stuck close, chatted with him and played dumb while carefully watching what he was doing/testing. He wrote up a $980 dollar estimate to replace all sorts of things. When I questioned it he told me they were all REQUIRED to get the furnace working again. After he left, I checked some things he did and it turned out to be a loose wire which I know for a fact he saw because he tinkered with it. Total cost to fix $80 for the furnace inspection.

As mentioned, asking for bids is a great way to control the process and weed out those that plan to gouge before they show up. Also letting a contractor know the work is non-essential for you helps. They will bump costs up if they think you just have to have wherever done.