EV Charger Installation
A Level 2 charger turns charging from an overnight worry into a non-event — if the circuit behind it is sized right. EMT Electric installs EV chargers across Chicago and the south suburbs: the wire, the breaker, the load math, and the permit.
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Bring whichever charger you bought
Tesla Wall Connector, ChargePoint, Emporia, Wallbox, or the mobile cord that came with the car plugged into a proper NEMA 14-50 outlet — the charger is the easy part. What decides whether it charges at full speed, and safely, is the dedicated 240-volt circuit feeding it: conductor gauge matched to the breaker, the breaker matched to what your panel can actually spare. That's the part we do for a living.
The install, start to finish
1. Load check first
Before quoting we look at what your panel already carries. That determines whether the charger gets a 30-, 40-, or 50-amp circuit — and whether the panel has the headroom at all.
2. The run
From the panel to where the car actually parks: through the basement to an attached garage, or out to a detached garage — a common Chicago layout that sometimes means trenching, which belongs in the quote, not in a surprise phone call.
3. Mount, permit, inspect
The charger goes on the wall, hardwired or plugged, and the village permit and inspection get handled where required. You get a charging circuit an inspector has signed off on.
If your panel has no room
Plenty of homes around here still run 100-amp services, and an EV circuit is the point where that stops being enough. If the load calculation says the panel can't carry a charger, the honest answer is a panel upgrade or a sub-panel — quoted together with the charger install up front, so you're deciding once, with the whole picture in front of you.
EV charging questions
Hardwired or plug-in?
Hardwiring is cleaner and usually required above 48 amps; a NEMA 14-50 outlet keeps the charger portable if you move. Either way the circuit work is the same job — we'll tell you which your charger's manual actually calls for.
Do you supply the charger?
Most customers buy their own — the car brand's unit or whatever was on sale — and we wire it. If you'd rather have one recommendation and one invoice, say so when you call.
How fast will it charge?
A Level 2 circuit typically adds roughly 20 to 40 miles of range per hour depending on the amperage and the car — nearly any EV fills overnight. The circuit size we install is the ceiling, so we size it to the car you have and the one you might buy next.