Project Spotlight: EV Charging Station Installation

See How Your Favourite EV Charging Station Contractors Came Through for This Client!a SWTCH EV charging station newly installed by expert electrical contractors

As Vancouver’s leading EV charging station contractors, we love a good challenge here at TCA Electric. Multifamily housing complexes often present some of the most unique and interesting hurdles in order to complete an EV charger installation—and that’s why we love taking these projects on!

In today’s Project Spotlight, we’re taking a look at a multifamily EV charging installation we completed for a strata here in Vancouver. This project presented some interesting obstacles, but our highly experienced and qualified team was up to the task!

Our client: A Vancouver strata owner

For this project, we worked with the strata for Sonrisa, a multifamily building here in Vancouver. Sonrisa is located in Port Moody, toward the northeast side of the Vancouver metro area. The strata company managing Sonrisa came across TCA online and were impressed by our previous work with multifamily EV charging projects. After chatting with our team, they decided TCA Electric would be perfect for the job they had in mind!

The project: Adding EV chargers to two visitor parking spots

The owners of the Sonrisa building were hoping to add EV charging capabilities to meet the needs of both residents of the building and potential visitors. Since demand for EV charging wasn’t high enough to install an EV charging station at every parking spot, their hope was to find a simpler solution to meet the needs of both groups.

Ultimately, they decided to call on our contractors to install an EV charging station in two visitor parking spots. This would enable visitors to use the chargers, as well as EV owner residents when the parking spots were not in use. 

The challenges: Connectivity and a clean appearance

While these EV chargers would be located in a car park, the client still hoped to keep the electrical components as clean and aesthetically pleasing as possible. This left our team with two main options: either run cable and strap it along the concrete ceiling and walls or install conduit pipe, which would take longer but looks much more pleasing to the eye.

Ensuring these EV charging stations would have internet access was also an obstacle to overcome. That’s because in many enclosed concrete car parks there’s limited to zero cell signal, making connectivity a challenge. Our team would have to determine the best way to keep the installation looking clean and also establish a reliable connection to enable these EV chargers to be used whenever needed.

The result: A seamless EV charger installation 

With the specifics of the project laid out, it was time to get to work! Brad was the project manager for this job; he was very excited to get the opportunity to install EV chargers in another multifamily building, as these are his favourite types of projects. Brad chose Josh, one of our strongest leads, and James, a new member of our team but a very experienced electrician, to complete the job.

The team decided that conduit would be the best solution to make the installation clean and seamless. We called in an outside company to X-ray the wall so that our team could carefully cut a hole without disrupting other systems that may have been run through the concrete. Following this, we also installed an antenna on the outside of the building. Our team determined this would be the best way of overcoming the car park’s connectivity issues and ensuring reliable functionality of the chargers.

Our skilled contractors worked very efficiently to complete this EV charging station installation, and our communication and planning even helped us work within and around the schedule of another contractor who was using these visitor parking spots to store equipment. None of these challenges seemed to faze our team; in Brad’s words, “They rocked it from start to finish,” and we couldn’t agree more!

two new EV charging stations in a parking garage

TCA Electric: Your Go-To EV Charging Station Contractors

Installing multifamily EV charging stations takes careful planning, organization, and most importantly execution. These projects can include many unexpected challenges and problems to solve for the client—and that’s why we love taking them on!

Our team of electricians has the experience and know-how to solve any electrical challenge, and we welcome the opportunity to put our skills to the test. If you’re hoping to add EV charging capabilities to your multifamily building, TCA is the one to call! Contact us today and let’s start planning your new EV charging system.

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