grandmas

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

No thank you

We didn't hear from the electrician who looked at our project for a really long time.
A lovely wall hanging
He had stopped by one day in the evening to see what we needed to do to put in a charger unit in our garage for our Nissan Leaf.
I walked him around the basement and the garage for a while explaining that we had bought an electric car (This is part 3 or 4 of my ongoing Leaf series.) and now that it was getting colder we wanted a charging unit that took less time to recharge.
We've been pulling power from a wall outlet using what's known as the trickle charge method. It's been fine but now that the temperatures are dropping, it takes 10-12 hours to fully charge and the power draw when we're out and about is heavier.
We've had a good run and we still love the car but we were ready to be a little more independent in our choices and resources.
We told this guy we wanted to run power from the breaker box downstairs through the ceiling and basement to the garage on the other side of the house.
He shook his head and talked about replacing breakers and punching holes in the sheetrock to find the wiring and repairs, etc. He didn't seem enthused about the whole plan.
After a few weeks I figured he was outta here for us so I called him.
He dropped off an estimate the next day. For $1300 he would put in an additional subpanel, run 2-guage wire through, up, around, and get us up and going. We would buy the actual charging unit and he would put in a 220 plug.
We told my son Steven about it. Steven told us the electrician's bid was pretty much a "No, thank you!" estimate.
Steven has been our go-to guy for years. He actually finished the basement for us and has since built a deck, put in a jacuzzi tub, a wall fireplace, replaced the entire kitchen, put in air conditioning, repaired a big hole in the roof, and basically redone, painted and/or fixed most everything in the house.
He shook his head at the estimate.
"I could do that," he said, "And it wouldn't be that much."
We jumped at the chance.
Not only is Steven's work cheaper. We trust him implicitly.
When we were in California he sent word that he had a weekend free when he would be in town.
So we ordered the charge unit from our hotel in California.
Two days later, it was on our porch when we got home.
Steven went to work and now we have a tidy, handy charger in our garage that is easy to operate, portable if we ever move, and one that charges our little cute car in about a third of the time.
Steven also pointed out that 2-guage wire would never have supported the car and likely would have burned up trying! He also ran the wire through the duct tunnel without making any holes. Cool!
We paid Steven for his supplies plus a little extra for being an angel and celebrated.
We are still dancing.
We are what you might call on a power trip!

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