Here’s what makes a bad EV charger installation genuinely dangerous: it usually works. Not “sort of works” — it actually charges your car, every day, for months, sometimes years. The problems it’s hiding don’t show up until something else goes wrong, and by then it’s a much bigger issue than a simple fix.
We get called out to fix these installations more often than you’d think — usually not because the homeowner cut corners, but because they didn’t know installing an EV charger is more involved than it looks.
Why It Looks Simple But Isn’t
An EV charger installation isn’t like installing a new appliance. It involves running a brand-new dedicated circuit from your electrical panel — sizing the wire correctly, confirming your panel has the capacity to handle it, grounding everything properly, and getting it permitted and inspected. Skip any one of these steps, and the charger will still charge your car. It just won’t be safe.
What We Actually Find
Wrong wire gauge for the amperage. If the wire is too thin for how much current is running through it, it heats up under sustained load — and EV charging is a sustained load, often for hours at a time. This is one of the most common issues in unlicensed work, and one of the most dangerous, because it’s completely invisible until it isn’t.
Missing or incorrect grounding. Grounding is what gives a fault current somewhere safe to go instead of through a person or through your home’s wiring. Skipped or improperly done grounding is a real shock hazard, and it’s not something you can verify by looking at the charger from the outside.
No dedicated circuit — the charger is sharing power with something else. This causes the exact tripping and overheating issues we cover in Signs Your EV Charger Installation Has a Problem. It’s also one of the more common shortcuts we find, because it avoids the work of running a new circuit.
No permit, which means no inspection ever happened. This is the part that ties everything else together. A permit isn’t just paperwork — it means a second, independent set of eyes confirmed the wiring, the grounding, and the panel connection were done correctly. Skip the permit, and none of that verification happened. Nobody checked the work. It’s just trust.
Why This Matters Beyond the Charger Itself
Insurance. If unpermitted electrical work causes a fire or damage, many homeowner’s insurance policies can deny the claim once they find out the work wasn’t permitted or performed by a licensed electrician.
Resale. Unpermitted electrical work commonly shows up during a home inspection when you go to sell. At that point, it often has to be corrected and retroactively permitted — which is more expensive and more disruptive than doing it right the first time.
Actual safety. This is the one that matters most. A charger pulling 30-50 amps for hours every night, on wiring that wasn’t sized or inspected correctly, is a real fire risk — not a theoretical one.
How to Avoid This
- Confirm your installer is a licensed electrician, not just someone experienced with EV chargers specifically
- Confirm a permit will be pulled for the job — this should be handled for you, not something you have to request
- Ask whether a load calculation was done to confirm your panel can support the new circuit
- Be cautious of installation quotes that are dramatically cheaper than others — permitting, proper materials, and licensed labor all cost something, and a much lower price often means one of those was skipped
If You’re Not Sure About an Existing Installation
If you have an EV charger that was installed by a handyman, a general contractor, or as part of a package deal with the charger purchase — and you’re not sure whether it was done by a licensed electrician or permitted — it’s worth having it evaluated. Most of the time it turns out fine. When it doesn’t, it’s much better to find out now than after something’s gone wrong.
Swartz Green Electric is a Qmerit-certified partner and Tesla-certified installer serving Houston and the surrounding area. We can evaluate an existing installation or handle a new one, permits included. Contact us for a free consultation.