Solar case studies across Los Angeles

Altadena 1

An SCE neighborhood where whole-home backup is the point of the project rather than an addition to it.

Arcadia 1

Tile roofs east of Pasadena, and projects that sit across more than one agency at a time.

Arleta 1

The other half of ZIP 91331, next door to Pacoima and run through exactly the same LADWP interconnection and LADBS permit as its neighbor.

Atwater Village 1

Flat and low-slope roofs across the river from Griffith Park, where the layout decision — tilted or laid flush — is a real one rather than a formality.

Beverlywood 2

Compact blocks south of Pico where the service equipment sits down a narrow side yard nobody looks at twice.

Brentwood 5

Large, often sloped lots with houses that have been altered more than once, where the design phase routinely runs longer than the permit and the interconnection put together.

Burbank 11

Its own city with its own utility and its own building department — Burbank Water and Power approves the interconnection here, not LADWP, and the process is separate from the rest of the Valley.

Calabasas 3

Its own city at the west end of the Valley, on Southern California Edison: rooftop solar starts with a zoning clearance from the Planning Division before Building and Safety reviews it, and some Calabasas addresses sit in unincorporated county territory with a county permit instead. S-tile, new shingle over a new deck, and flat roofs on new houses.

Canoga Park 4

Houses where the roof had to be settled before anything else could happen — one taken back to the deck, one with every tile lifted and reset.

Chatsworth 7

Older tile roofs on one side of this ZIP code and new flat-roofed builds on the other, with the plan check and the roof covering deciding most of what happens.

Cypress Park 1

Small lots between the river and the hills, where the calendar is decided by the process rather than by the roof.

Eagle Rock 2

Older houses on sloping lots between the hills and the 134, with roof planes small enough that a change of module size shows up in the layout immediately.

East Los Angeles 1

Unincorporated county rather than city, so the permit, the fire inspection and the electricity all run through different agencies than an address a few miles west.

Echo Park 3

Old hillside housing with roofs that are part pitched and part low-slope — which matters more after the crew has left than while it is there.

El Sereno 3

Small, older houses on the northeast side, with service equipment that has been added to over decades by more than one hand.

Encino 12

Projects weighted toward what plan check asks for: interrupt ratings at the service equipment, clearances around a battery, a model suffix that changes the branch layout, and the corrections that come back on a pink form.

Fairfax 1

Dense pre-war blocks where the equipment ends up further from the router than anybody expects.

Glassell Park 4

A hillside neighborhood in northeast Los Angeles where the streets climb, the lots are narrow, and where the meter can physically go is a real constraint.

Glendale 11

A city that runs its own utility. Glendale Water & Power approves the interconnection, and the process is its own, not LADWP's.

Granada Hills 23

The deepest run in the archive, across 91344 and 91394. Hillside lots, concrete tile, post-war services built for a smaller house, and an unusual amount of the work decided by paperwork rather than by the roof.

Hancock Park 1

Large older houses west of downtown, a good number of them with somebody working inside all day.

Hidden Hills 1

A gated city on Southern California Edison, where the community association's architectural committee approves the solar before the city's Building and Safety reviews it.

Hollywood Hills 6

Steep narrow lots inside City of Los Angeles boundaries, old services often in the wrong place, and a distance between the meter and where it has to end up that is usually the expensive part of the job.

La Cañada Flintridge 1

A clay tile roof that other installers had turned down as too fragile to work on.

Lincoln Heights 1

One of the oldest neighborhoods in Los Angeles, north-east of downtown, where the housing is small and old and the services behind it are frequently the original ones.

Long Beach 21

Its own city rather than a Los Angeles neighborhood: permits come from the City of Long Beach Building & Safety Bureau, with an expedited residential solar route that wants the contractor’s city business license, and interconnection runs through Edison rather than a municipal utility. Housing old enough to be fed from the pole, so the weather head is part of a panel upgrade, and old enough to be stucco over wood lath, which decides what replacing a recessed panel involves.

Los Angeles 5

Write-ups that are not tied to a single neighborhood — the situations that come up everywhere in the city.

Los Feliz 1

Hillside and flat blocks below Griffith Park, and the kind of straightforward roof a standard plan is written for.

Mar Vista 1

Ordinary Westside single-family blocks, and projects where the administrative items outlast the technical ones.

Mid-City 3

A City of Los Angeles neighborhood of mostly pre-war housing between Pico and Venice, where a solar application routinely turns into a conversation about the electrical service.

Mission Hills, Los Angeles 5

A neighborhood inside the City of Los Angeles, next to the separate City of San Fernando: permits through LADBS and the grid through LADWP. Hip and shingle roofs, flat concrete tile, a service panel replaced after a load calculation ruled out a de-rate, and a system tied in at a subpanel.

North Hills, Los Angeles 9

A Valley neighborhood where addresses, meters and second units multiply, and the filing decides more than the roof.

North Hollywood 23

The city of accessory dwelling units, and the widest run of utility and service work in the archive — addresses, work requests, meter spots and the paperwork behind them.

Northridge 20

Our own neighborhood, and the widest range of work in the archive: roofs, services, rebates, warranty calls and permits.

Pacoima 9

Post-war single-story blocks on modest services in the northeast Valley, sharing a ZIP with Arleta and, often enough, sharing the confusion that causes in the paperwork.

Palms 2

A dense pocket between the 10 and Culver City, where a larger array usually means working across more than one roof plane.

Panorama City 4

Post-war Valley housing on older services, where a roof can take a day and the supply underneath it is decades older.

Porter Ranch 14

New construction, where the array is not optional and the energy code decides its size before anyone draws it.

Rancho Park 1

Westside streets on underground service, where the meter position is settled from site photographs rather than from the drawing.

Reseda 10

Mostly second dwellings on lots that already had a house, which means a second meter, a second application, and an address the utility has to be told about before anything connects.

San Fernando 7

Its own city, surrounded on every side by Los Angeles: permits come from the City of San Fernando Building and Safety Division and the grid is Southern California Edison’s, while the neighborhoods across the city line are on LADWP. Older shingle houses on one side of town, newer two-story subdivisions with concrete and clay tile on the other, and on a tile roof the mount goes under the tile.

Santa Clarita 16

Its own city rather than a Los Angeles neighborhood, with its own building department and Edison rather than LADWP on the meter — tile and shingle tracts spread over six ZIP codes from Canyon Country to Valencia.

Sherman Oaks 8

A city of tear-downs and rebuilds: most of our work in these ZIP codes is on houses that did not exist three years earlier, with solar designed into the build rather than added to it.

Simi Valley 15

Ventura County permitting and its own utility, with panel upgrades, express permits and an association letter deciding the order things happen in.

South Los Angeles 1

Small single-story lots around Vermont Knolls, inside the city and on the same permit counter as the rest of it, often with a second structure at the back.

Studio City 9

Projects in 91604, where most solar arrives on a lot that has just been cleared and rebuilt, and the builder's schedule sets the pace.

Sun Valley 4

Projects in one Los Angeles ZIP code where the permit route, not the roof or the equipment, decided how long each job took.

Sunland, Los Angeles 5

A foothill neighborhood inside the City of Los Angeles that shares its ZIP code with Shadow Hills: permits through LADBS, sometimes with the final run as a video inspection, and the grid through LADWP. Hip roofs with many faces, shingle roofs where every mount is flashed, and older electrical services that need a de-rate or a new meter assembly before anything else.

Sylmar 6

Older houses at the north end of the Valley, where the roof and the service panel come up as often as the array itself.

Tarzana 9

Projects in 91356 and 91335, where the roof is usually the constraint: concrete tile, S-tile and arrays broken into small groups.

Tujunga, Los Angeles 5

A foothill neighborhood inside the City of Los Angeles, next to Sunland: permits through LADBS and the grid through LADWP. Shingle roofs and low-slope roofs, lots with a house and an ADU on separate permits and meters, and main breakers de-rated so solar can join the existing panel.

Valley Village 2

A small pocket of the east Valley inside City of Los Angeles boundaries, where most of what comes up now is service work on arrays that have been running for years.

Van Nuys 1

A commercial rooftop restarted from a half-built state after the original contractor stopped.

Van Nuys, Los Angeles 11

A San Fernando Valley neighborhood of Los Angeles where multi-unit lots, new ADUs and the meter that serves each of them decide most of the calendar.

West Adams 2

Deep lots south of the 10 where a fair number of roofs already carry an array from an earlier generation of solar.

West Hills 2

Large roofs that take an array across four or five planes, and lots deep enough for a second dwelling behind the house.

West Los Angeles 1

Small lots around Sawtelle with houses close together, so usable roof area is often a fraction of what the same house would have further out.

Westchester 4

Between the airport and the coast, inside City of Los Angeles boundaries. The utility writes Westchester rather than Los Angeles on its own notices for addresses here.

Westlake Village 1

A solar and battery project measured by what the electricity bill did afterwards.

Windsor Square 1

Older housing west of downtown with arrays that have been up long enough for the parts nobody looks at again to start mattering.

Winnetka 9

A neighborhood being rebuilt lot by lot: second dwellings, accessory units and older houses adding a service that was never sized for what goes on it now.

Woodland Hills 14

The west end of the Valley, inside City of Los Angeles boundaries. Large roofs, long runs back to the service, and a plan-check queue that on a clean set can close in under two weeks.