Hollywood Hills, CA · April 2022 – December 2023 · LADWP / LADBS

The inspector sent it back to plan check.

An inspection is meant to end in a signature. This one ended with the whole system being sent for drawings, over a disconnect that was not there.

Written by the Cali Energy project team · California contractor license 1032379 · Updated September 2026

The Los Angeles Fire Department's Requirement 96 governs rooftop photovoltaic systems, including where disconnecting means have to be and how conductors run between service equipment and sub panels. On this Hollywood Hills house the conductors ran from the meter socket to a sub panel in the garage with no disconnect between them and no overcurrent protection on that run. Because the installed arrangement did not meet the requirement, the inspector could not sign it off in the field — it had to go through plan check with the site conditions drawn. Cali Energy took this 29-module array in the Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles through that plan check and the corrections that followed it.

At a glance

Array

29 modules, one inverter per module

Triggered by

Fire department requirement for rooftop photovoltaic systems

The issue

Unfused conductors, meter socket to garage sub panel, no disconnect

Inverters

Module-level, not a central inverter

Outcome

Field sign-off refused; full plan check required

Utility / AHJ

LADWP / LADBS

The story

Most corrections are a line on a card. This one was a sentence from a mechanical inspector that changed the shape of the whole project: the system would have to go to plan check, because what was installed did not meet the fire department's requirement for rooftop photovoltaic systems.

The specific objection was precise and worth understanding, because it recurs on houses with detached garages. The conductors ran from the meter socket to a sub panel in the garage. There was no disconnecting means between them, and that run carried no overcurrent protection — unfused conductors, in the language of the correction. The requirement is not silent about that arrangement, and an inspector cannot sign off something the requirement does not permit, however well it is built.

We put the obvious question back. The system is on module-level inverters rather than a central inverter, and the alternating-current disconnect and the meter are within three feet of each other. On a great many systems that combination answers the question entirely.

It did not answer it here, and the reply was one line: what is installed on site does not meet the requirement. That is the part worth sitting with. Module-level inverters change where the direct-current side ends and what has to be isolated on the roof. They do not change what happens between the meter and a sub panel in another building. Those are different problems, and an answer to one is not an answer to the other.

So the system went to plan check, with an instruction attached: show the site conditions. Not a typical set — the actual arrangement, including the run with no disconnect on it, drawn as it exists. A plan checker cannot approve a remedy for a condition that is not on the drawing.

The revised set came back ten days later, and reviewing it produced its own list. The existing sub panel had dropped off the drawing between versions and had to go back on. The single-line diagram described the service as existing where the scope called for a new one — a one-letter difference on a drawing that decides which service the whole design is built around. And the main breaker had been de-rated on the new set with nothing in the scope calling for it.

None of those three would have stopped the array working. All three would have stopped the plan check, and the second of them would have been discovered at the final, with the panel already on the wall.

The project ran on into the following year, with a formal correction notice in the late summer of 2023 and the file closing out that November. Twenty months on a question that started as a disconnect between two buildings.

What to take from it. If your house has a detached garage with a sub panel, ask early where the disconnect between the meter and that sub panel is and whether the run is protected. And if you are told a correction can be resolved in the field, ask whether it is a code question or a fire-department requirement — because the second kind ends in drawings, and the drawings have their own queue.

Cali Energy carried this Hollywood Hills project in Los Angeles through the plan check the inspection triggered, and the array was commissioned once the corrections cleared.

How it ran

Twenty months from the first correction to the last message, and the trigger was a run of conductors between two buildings.

What we did

• Put the microinverter argument to the inspector rather than assuming it applied.
• Took the system to plan check with the site conditions drawn as they actually were.
• Reviewed the revised set before it went for stamping and returned three corrections.
• Carried the formal correction notice through to a closed file.

System specifications

Is your project like this one?

• Your house has a detached garage with its own sub panel.
• An inspector has told you the system needs to go to plan check.
• You have been told microinverters solve a disconnect question.
• Conductors run between your meter and another building with nothing in between.
• A revised plan set came back and you are not sure what to check on it.

Cali Energy in Hollywood Hills

Frequently asked questions

Why would an inspector send a finished system to plan check?

Because a field inspection can only sign off what the approved drawings and the applicable requirements allow. If the installed arrangement does not meet a requirement — here the fire department's rule for rooftop photovoltaic systems — there is nothing the inspector can approve on site. The remedy has to be drawn, reviewed and approved before it can be inspected.

Do microinverters remove the need for a disconnect?

Not in general. Module-level inverters change where the direct-current side ends and what has to be isolated on the roof, which answers some disconnect questions. They say nothing about the run between the meter and a sub panel in another building. On this project that distinction was exactly the point, and the microinverter argument did not apply.

What does 'unfused conductors' mean on a correction?

That a run of conductors has no overcurrent protection at its supply end. Between a meter socket and a sub panel in a detached garage that is a familiar arrangement and a familiar problem: nothing between the two buildings can clear a fault on that run, and there is no means of disconnecting it.

What should I check on a revised plan set?

That everything on the previous set is still there, that the service is described as existing or new to match the actual scope, and that nothing has been de-rated without a reason in the scope. On this project all three came up on one revision. None would have stopped the array working; all three would have stopped the plan check.

Does Cali Energy work on Hollywood Hills houses with detached garages?

Yes, and the sub panel in the garage is one of the recurring questions in this part of Los Angeles. Cali Energy looks at the run between the meter and any detached structure before the design is finished, because a missing disconnect on that run is found at the inspection and fixed in plan check, which is the expensive order to do it in.

What this would look like on your roof

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This timeline reflects this property and this permitting path. Updated September 2026.