How would you set this up: 10 unit apartment w/individual outlets at each parking spot

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brycenesbitt

Senior Member
Location
United States
What equipment & wire layout might you specify?

This is for a 10 unit apartment building with a central meter cluster, and 60A subpanels for each unit.
However each meter must also feed a 20A 240V GFCI protected outlet at the unit's dedicated parking spot.
Backfeeding each parking spot from the unit subpanel would be a lot of wire, though is not totally out of the question.
 
If the subpanel is in the unit, and the outlet is fed from the subpanel, then the tenant would be able to control when there is power to the outlet. If I were a tenant I wouldn't want someone else to use it.
 
Presumably, each dedicated parking spot outlet needs to have some way of denying power to anyone except the person assigned to that spot. That would require some sort of locking or switch. Locking could be mechanical or something fancier like keycard.
 
Just run 2 extra wires up to each apartment with the feeder to that apartment. Then connect the outlets to those two wires. It is not that big of a deal.
 
LarryFine said:
Does the meter stack have individual breakers?
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The meter stack is not yet chosen.
The stacks I've looked at are not listed for quad breakers, and there are no GFCI quads, so that's kind of out.


petersonra said:
Just run 2 extra wires up to each apartment with the feeder to that apartment. Then connect the outlets to those two wires. It is not that big of a deal.
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Yes, that's the default option. And has the advantage that the tenant can turn off the breaker to discourage freeloaders and space heaters for nearby tent encampments.

That said, still looking for a full suite of options, and trying to avoid the fairly lengthy extra wire run (main to sub->sub to main->main to parking spot). Remote control breakers would do that, but... $$$. This is for EV charging at low speed, so it's a continuous load likely more KWH than the rest of the unit load combined.


tthh said:
Presumably, each dedicated parking spot outlet needs to have some way of denying power to anyone except the person assigned to that spot. That would require some sort of locking or switch. Locking could be mechanical or something fancier like keycard.
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Ongoing management cost of mechanical keys for a 2 pole key switches, or cards for keycards, likely precludes that solution. I could see keycard working for buildings with existing RFID access control systems, though the integration cost could be substantial.

All that said there would be a fairly high chance of getting caught, plugging in to a neighbor's clearly labeled outlet. Not that nobody would ever try.
 
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I would definitely put the breaker in the tenant’s subpanel. That way, they don’t have to call the super when they trip the breaker by plugging in a 32A EVSE using an Amazon adapter.
 
I think all the options that don't involve wiring it off the tenants panel are going to be more expensive and have ongoing costs. Wire is relatively cheap and has the major benefit of simplicity.

Another simple option is to install a panel board downstream of each meter that feeds the parking lot outlet and the apartment, but that seems like a lot of money and space. Tenants can put a padlock on the outlet breaker if they want to preclude someone from using their outlet.
 
Hey, for those of you in cold weather areas:
is there much of any precedent for this for block heaters for ICE cars? Like the outlet supporting the block heaters?
 
petersonra said:
Another simple option is to install a panel board downstream of each meter that feeds the parking lot outlet and the apartment, but that seems like a lot of money and space.
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I think it could be done pretty cheaply: one of those little six space load centers is like 30 bucks, maybe about the same cost as the wire to the apartment panel, perhaps a little more makeup time though. Less voltage drop could be a big plus as he said this was for an EV.

I had to do something similar years ago where we were doing some rework and the owner wanted the tenants to pay for their heating circulator. In this case it wasn't possible to run a branch circuit from the apartment panels. I told the owner it probably would never pay for itself an electricity savings but he still wanted me to do it.
 
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