Electrical Fault Detection and Fire Prevention

[smurf12345]

Hi All:

I ran across the below article on the IAEI website recently (sorry, if this has been posted before) and is a good technical read on electrical faults. It seems very relevant to EVSE plug and outlet melting discussions. Until reading it, I never really gave it much thought since I figured a 15 years house was pretty new with nothing to worry about. After reading the article, I actually went out to the garage and looked over the outlet which is about 6 inches under the circuit panel. While the outlet doesn't seem loose, I will be preemptively replacing it with a high quality GFCI outlet (also another good article). There is no reason to chance problems due to its age or possible moisture getting to its contacts over the years.

So, while checking it out, I find the previous owner has managed to drive a nail through the drywall piercing the conduit leading to the circuit panel. I've shutoff the breaker for now until I can pull the wires and inspect them, but if it by chance nicked a wire, it could lead to arcing and possible melting/fire.

Once I have that issues sorted, I'm wondering if I should consult an electrician and have a combination AFCI breaker for extra protection. AFCI breakers maybe mandatory in some areas, but I believe my house was built before they were widely available.

Anyways, it is a good read and makes me think an electrical inspection is probably a good idea in older homes. Better that than being they guy on the news causing an EV fire ruckus even if it wasn't due to the EV.

http://www.iaei.org/magazine/2011/09...ire-ignitions/

http://www.iaei.org/magazine/2005/01...-do-they-mean/

-Patrick

[Bob_Livonia]

I suspect that those alleging that the level 1 charge cord that comes with the car is a piece of junk ought to look in the mirror, or at least look at their wiring, preferably via a licensed electrician.

I haven't had any trouble with mine over 22,000 miles (I do have level 2 charging at home, but use the L1 somewhat frequently during the day). I did notice the short plug cord being hot once, but that was only in my dad's garage, with wiring that goes back 45 years. I'll put in a new GFCI outlet for dad next time I'm there.

[tboult]

House wiring, especially in the garage, can often be less than ideal, as some builders to the minimum to meet code and homeowners often don't know what they are doing. Driving a nail near it is dangerous when its done as well as leaving the resulting potential for problems later.



Bob: while there may be a few customer issues, its also quite possible that there is a quality control problems and some units are perfectly fine and others were not built to spec. These are the lowest price ESVE and its possible the production line has processess/people that are not as quality focus. I've used my ESVE exclusively for the past 4 months, but there are too many failures being reported to presume its all operator error.