New construction electrical in Pacific Palisades.

Scope on a Palisades build

What County Line carries.

• LADWP application, temporary power, service entrance and panels sized for generator, EV, induction and heat pumps
• Complete rough-in to the current California Electrical Code
• Lutron HomeWorks dimming panels, keypad wiring, Ketra fixtures, shade power and control
• Low-voltage backbone: network, cameras, audio and video, security, gate and intercom
• Generac standby generator: pad, transfer switch, gas coordination
• EV circuits, pool and spa equipment, landscape lighting feeds
• Finish, programming, the LADBS final and the owner walkthrough

Questions from Palisades builders

Inspections

Passing the first time is the schedule.

On a custom home the electrical inspections are the rough, sometimes a service inspection, and the final, and each one that fails costs the builder a week. County Line schedules its own inspections, walks the house before the inspector arrives, and has worked with the inspectors in the City of Los Angeles, Malibu, Thousand Oaks, Westlake Village, Calabasas, Hidden Hills, Beverly Hills and the three counties long enough to know what each one looks for. The company keeps the correction list short by doing the work to the code as written, not to the code as remembered.

As-builts and a labeled panel go to the builder at the end, because the next electrician to open that panel, in ten years, should not have to guess.

Change orders

Where they come from, and how County Line keeps them rare.

Most electrical change orders on a custom home come from three places: a lighting plan that does not match the framing, an owner who decides at trim that there should be a keypad by the bed after all, and a service that was sized for the house in the drawings rather than the house being built, with its generator, its two EV chargers and its induction range. County Line prices from the full set to catch the first, captures the owner's decisions in writing before finish to catch the second, and sizes the service from a real load calculation to catch the third.

When a change is genuinely the owner's, it is priced in writing before the work is done. A change order that arrives after the fact is a bill, not a change order.

Temporary power

The first thing on the lot, and the first thing to file for.

Nothing happens on a cleared lot without power for the foundation and framing crews, and in the Palisades and Altadena the utility application for temporary service is the long lead item. County Line files it as soon as the lot address and the plans exist, sets the temporary pole or pedestal to the utility's standard, gets it inspected, and keeps the build moving on temporary power while the permanent service works its way through LADWP or SCE. When the permanent service is energized, the temporary comes out and the credit for it is on the final invoice.