I bought a Chevy Bolt recently and I’m currently a renter. We’re hoping to buy our first house in the coming months, and buying a home charger is one of my first priorities after we close.
Houses are older in my area (metro Detroit), especially at our price point. Most garages are detached, some non existent.
Is there anything specially I need to look or ask for to ensure the house is EV Charger acceptable? Does the electrical equipment need to be somewhere specifically?
Finally, would I be able to purchase a free standing charger if it’s unable to attach to the house?
The advice here is good. I’d add that you might want to look into an EVSE with load management. Something like this one from Emporia. They monitor how much power your house is drawing and scale back the EV charger until it’s at a safe level. When you’re not using a lot of power you get full speed charging. When you have a heavy electric load the vehicle throttles back its charge rate. Something like this allows you to avoid an expensive service panel upgrade.
I would suggest once you’ve narrowed things down to one or two properties paying an electrician to look at them and offer advice. Find one that’s familiar with load managing EVSEs as many of them haven’t caught up with the tech. An hour or two of their time could save you thousands down the road
https://shop.emporiaenergy.com/collections/ev-chargers/products/emporia-level-2-ev-charger-with-load-management