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Comment by dghughes | Hacker News Reader

This reminds me of my elderly parent's home 50+ years old, original 100A service and wiring, glass fuses. Built in a time when electrical devices were; washer, dryer, fridge, stove, TV, furnace, lights. All 15A 120V except for the stove at 30A 240V. Probably four circuits for the entire house.

All homes on their street have electrical service entering from the opposite side of the driveway. So if they wanted a car charger the house would have to be rewired, service upgraded.

Electric vehicles are for the young and rich.

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> except for the stove at 30A 240V

So you're saying that your perfect example of a house that is behind on maintenance...

would only require...

A quick job to wire the 240 to the garage that every other house that isn't behind on safety maintenance.

If you're lucky, the electrician would install a modern code compliant panel while on the job.

What lack of maintenance? The wires and panel work fine. The house is the same as it has been for years no electrical issues.

That "quick job" costs a lot of money probably $15K not to mention the labour and time involved. And to a garage that doesn't exist.

My point being adding modern things more power hungry like an EV are not easy for older homes. Renovating to update the entire electrical system is not cheap.

15k? Are you buying cocaine for your electrician and his hookers, or are you hiring him to run a 240v outlet? Because the latter should cost about 1/10th of what you’re expecting..

I was commenting to the person above who seemingly wants my parents to rewire their entire home. And to do so every few years since apparently that's what proper maintenance means.

The lack of maintenance is updating the circuit panel first and wires second, I believe this is the _ $15k you're referencing. Cloth wiring, no grounds, no gfi around water, and fuses create for a very dangerous fire and electrocution hazard; any electrician or home inspector would have recommended changing it out 20 years ago; without electric cars being in the conversation.

You don't have to rewire the rest of the house to extend the 240 across the width of the house. 240 is the least integrated wiring. And every house (new and old) that needs a driveway or garage placement requires the same wiring change.

If you wanted, the cheapest option is to move the service point (no cost)

> Cloth wiring, no grounds

50yr ago is 1971. They weren't using cloth insulated wiring in 1971.

From the 1930s through whenever romex became common they used BX shielded cable which only relies on the cloth to provide color coding and UV shielding for the rubber that insulates the wire and the cable shielding acts as the ground.

>the lack of maintenance is updating the circuit panel first and wires second, I believe this is the _ $15k you're referencing.

Not fixing stuff that isn't broke isn't "lack of maintenence"

The vast majority of people do not live in the world of million dollar properties where half of everything gets renovated with each new owner.

Insurance companies charge a significant premium for houses that still have fuses for a reason. We've learned a lot about electrical (fire) safety in the past few decades. cf knob and tube wiring.

Most likely you wouldn't have to rewire the branch circuits. A panel swap and new service entrance should run you about $3k (depending on location and inflation).

Knob and tube wiring is outdated and very dangerous. This article is about the grid in general, not your parents' ancient fuses.

240V 30A is over 7kw. Even a 15A 120V is enough to charge a typical electric car.

The grid in general has a lot of old wiring especially in earlier settled parts of the country. I grew up in a house built in 1940 and it wasn't especially old for my area. These are real costs that affect real people when discussing a massive paradigm shift like going mainly to EV and comments like yours perpetuate the idea that EV's are for a certain wealthy disconnected from reality virtue signalling crowd.

Overdue maintenance for real people.

Cloth and/or ungrounded wiring is a electrocution and fire hazard and should be considered unsafe for anybody using basic electrics near any water source, much more if it has any load. This warning should be more pronounced for elderly, children, or people who have not been accustomed to it.

This is not much different than the Lowndes Al homes that haven't had working septic in 30 years that are bringing back hookworm.

My house doesn't even have grounded wires. I wonder if that is an issue when charging an EV.

It depends on the car, using the charger that you connect on a classic household plug some do not really mind a bad grounding while some other will refuse to charge.

But it's not too difficult to fix that if you get a charger installed.

thanks

If everything is working probably not. Although the EV charge port may require a ground path be present.

If the neutral wire breaks the ground is for safety. Otherwise the hot needs a path and that will probably be the car itself, or most likely you.

>Knob and tube wiring is outdated ...

Knob and tube was discontinued in the 1940s not 1970s.

Yup - this is very common in southern California, for example. My mother-in-law and brother-in-law's homes are both in this situation. Ours would also have been except we were lucky that the previous owner was an EV early adopter and when he did a big remodeling project, he upgraded the service panel. (We then added solar when we moved in...)

Looks like your elderly parent home is fine. Just share the 30A 240V line between the stove and the car charger. You have hardware to share the load automatically, my not so young boss has that. And most EVs will charge at 32A max on 240V so you don't really need to get more amps.

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