Installing Home Chargers Can Be Tricky. Here’s How To Avoid A Potential Fire

It’s no secret that the vast majority of electric vehicle charging takes place at home. Nor is it a secret that not all Level 2 chargers are created equal. But L2 installations, though often considered straightforward, aren’t equal either. There’s a lot of electricity going through those boxes. If anything isn’t up to par, the consequences could be disastrous.

To hammer that point home, our man Tom Moloughney launched a segment on his State of Charge YouTube channel called Recharge Rescue. In short, he visits people having problems with their home chargers, explains what happened, and brings in a licensed electrician with EV experience to make everything right.

His series kicked off last year, but the latest installment takes us to Ohio for a Mustang Mach-E owner with a melted NEMA 14-50 outlet.

The video opens with some very important advice: not all outlets advertised as industrial grade can cope with the rigors of continuous high-power use. Moloughney highlights a Leviton 279-S00 plug, which typically sells for around $10 and is described as being industrial grade. He compares it with a newer Leviton plug designed specifically for EV charging, and the differences between them are notable. The upgraded plug is considerably thicker with more metal inside and better mounting connections for the wiring on the housing.

The price difference is also notable—$66 versus $10. But Moloughney notes that the higher price is absolutely worth it for the improved quality and capability. In short, you pay more to get more.

Visiting the Mach-E owner, we see that the melted NEMA plug was indeed a smaller, lower-grade unit. In this particular case, the owner was fortunate a major fire didn’t occur. The outlet got hot enough to fuse the charger’s plug in place. Moloughney brought a new charger to install, and with an experienced electrician on hand, the outlet was eliminated completely in favor of hard-wiring. The breaker box was also updated with a 50-amp breaker—it was discovered that the previous electrician used a 60-amp breaker with 6 gauge Romex wiring to power the 50-amp outlet. The new charger was derated to 40 amps so it wouldn’t overdraw the circuit.

The upgrade goes smoothly, but the takeaway from the video is to not skimp on your home installation. Hard wiring is generally the better way to, but if you opt for a plug, make sure it’s not just industrial grade, but capable of handling extended power demands for EV charging. And it’s also best to have a licensed electrician with EV experience handle the installation.