Cheap NEC load calculator
- An IBEW master electrician released ChargeRight, an app that uses a photo plus seven questions to calculate NEC 220.82 loads. - The app is sold for $12.99 and the poster claims roughly 70% of EV owners avoid panel upgrades after using it. - The developer also offered manual calculations after a Vercel outage and actively promoted the workflow to electricians ( ).
A master electrician is selling a $12.99 app that tells homeowners whether they actually need a panel upgrade before installing an electric-vehicle charger. (chargeright.com) ChargeRight says it uses a photo of the electrical panel, a short questionnaire, and the National Electrical Code’s optional dwelling-load method in Section 220.82 to produce a PDF assessment in minutes. The site says the product was founded by an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 369 master electrician. (chargeright.com) The pitch is price and speed. ChargeRight lists its full panel assessment at $12.99, compares that with a $150 to $300 electrician service call, and says a panel upgrade can run $3,000 to $5,000. (chargeright.com) A load calculation is the math electricians use to estimate how much power a house can safely handle. Section 220.82 is the code’s simplified path for single dwellings on 120/240-volt or 120/208-volt 3-wire service rated 100 amps or more. (electricianu.com; ecmweb.com) That matters for electric-vehicle charging because a Level 2 charger adds a large 240-volt load, but not every house needs a bigger panel to support it. Qmerit says a typical home charger installation averages about $1,700 and can cost more when electrical upgrades are needed. (qmerit.com) The market for that advice is growing. Cox Automotive said used electric-vehicle sales reached 42,924 units in March 2026, a monthly record, as the secondhand market kept expanding even while new electric-vehicle sales fell from a year earlier. (coxautoinc.com; insideevs.com) ChargeRight’s site says “80% of the time” installers are wrong when they say a panel upgrade is needed, and the user-provided context for this story says the developer has separately claimed roughly 70% of electric-vehicle owners avoid upgrades after using the tool. Those figures were visible in the company’s marketing, but I could not independently verify the underlying dataset from public materials. (chargeright.com) The company also positioned itself against installer networks that rely on remote scoping. Treehouse, which recently partnered with Toyota and Lexus, says customers can get an upfront installation quote in 48 hours or less using photos and a virtual assessment. (pressroom.toyota.com; pages.treehouse.pro) ChargeRight’s site includes a caveat: its results are “guidance” and final installation decisions should still be confirmed by a licensed electrician and local code requirements. That leaves the app in the middle ground between a free estimate and a permitted job. (chargeright.com) The close is simple: as more buyers bring home used electric vehicles, the first question is often not which charger to buy, but whether the house can carry one. ChargeRight is trying to turn that answer into a $12.99 decision instead of a truck roll. (coxautoinc.com; chargeright.com)
