Electrical contractor in Pacific Palisades.

What is different here

City of Los Angeles rules, LADWP power, and a neighborhood being rebuilt all at once.

Pacific Palisades is inside the City of Los Angeles, which means electrical permits run through the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety and the power comes from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, not Southern California Edison. Those two facts shape every job. LADWP has its own service standards, its own meter and panel requirements and its own timelines for new and re-established service, and since the January 2025 fire the department has been rebuilding its own distribution in parts of the neighborhood at the same time homeowners are rebuilding houses. An electrical contractor working here has to know how to file with both agencies and how to keep a job moving while a utility reconnection is pending.

County Line Electric has worked on custom homes in the Palisades for years, from the bluffs to the Highlands and the Riviera, and since 2025 the work has shifted toward rebuild lots: ground-up houses on the footprint of ones that burned, built to the current code by owners and builders who want it done properly the second time. The company is based in Newbury Park, about an hour away, and runs crews on Palisades jobs for the duration of the rough-in and finish rather than commuting for service calls.

The rebuild

What a Palisades rebuild needs from its electrician.

Temporary power first, filed with LADWP as early as the lot is cleared, because the reconnection is the long lead item. Then a new service entrance and panel sized for the house that is being built: standby generator, EV charging, induction cooking and heat pumps are all standard on 2025 rebuilds and the old 100 or 200 amp service rarely covers them. Rough-in to the current California Electrical Code with arc-fault and ground-fault protection throughout, the low-voltage backbone for network, cameras and audio, and Lutron lighting control wiring if the house will have it. Then finish, programming and the final with LADBS.

Standby power is the one thing County Line pushes on every Palisades rebuild. The neighborhood sits in a very high fire hazard severity zone, utility shutoffs during wind events are now routine, and a generator planned into the new service costs a fraction of one retrofitted later. The Palisades rebuild page goes into the sequence in detail.

Custom homes

Not every Palisades job is a rebuild.

The Palisades was a custom-home market long before the fire and still is. Westside builders and architects hire County Line as the electrical sub on ground-up houses and major remodels where the lighting designer, the integrator and the owner all have opinions, and where the electrical has to make those opinions buildable. Lutron HomeWorks, Ketra, motorized shades and whole-home automation are normal here, and County Line installs them with the same crew that wires the house. New construction in the Palisades covers that work.

Palisades questions