Woodland Hills, CA · February – April 2022 · LADWP / LADBS

The array went up first. The permit was still in correction.

Fourteen kilowatts on a Woodland Hills roof. The modules were on the roof in early March and the permit was not approved until the middle of April, and everything difficult about this project follows from that one fact.

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

A permit is not paperwork that catches up with the work. It is the approved design, and the inspector checks the installation against it. When an array is installed before approval, any correction the city issues lands on a finished system, and the fix is done twice: once on the roof and once on the permit. On this project the final inspection failed because the existing main panel was not acceptable, and the subpanel that solved it needed an electrical permit of its own. Cali Energy installed this Woodland Hills array, produced the load calculations the drawings were missing, and carried it to a passed final.

At a glance

System size

14.4 kW DC

Load calculations

Produced by us when the plan set lacked them

Service work

Panel upgrade in the drawn scope; a subpanel added instead after the failed final

Permits

Solar permit, then a separate express permit for the subpanel

Installation

Carried out before permit approval

Final inspection

Failed once, passed on the second visit

Battery

None

Utility / AHJ

LADWP / LADBS

The story

We were the installing contractor here. Another company held the customer, the design, the permit and the materials, and we had the roof and the crew.

The installation date moved four times through February, each time for the same reason, which was that the permit had not been approved. Then in the first days of March the array went on anyway, and a week later the company that held the permit wrote to say the plans had come back with corrections and were still in process.

The corrections were not small. The layout on the drawings did not match what was being built, and the city wanted a load schedule that was not in the set at all. Then came the sentence that tells you where a project really stands: the engineer on the other side could not produce the load calculations. So we produced them, explained that they had to go into the plan set as its final page and be submitted for stamping, and sent them over.

The permit was approved in the middle of April, six weeks after the array was finished, and the final inspection was booked for three days later.

It failed.

The reason is the most common failure on a retrofit of this size. A panel upgrade had been drawn into the scope, but the panel the array was actually connected to could not carry it, and the inspector would not sign that off. The remedy the job took was a subpanel rather than a full replacement: cheaper and faster, and still electrical work, so it needed its own permit.

That point surprised the company running the project, which asked whether the subpanel could not simply be installed. It could not. Any work, and electrical work above all, is permitted work. An express permit was pulled within a few days, the subpanel went in along with an enclosure and the stucco made good around it, and the final was rebooked.

The final passed on the twenty-second of April and the job closed the same day. One note went out with it: the monitoring card had never been registered, so the system would generate but report nothing until somebody did it. Catching that on the way out is the sort of thing a crew on site can do and an office cannot, and it is the difference between an owner who sees production from day one and an owner who spends a month believing the array is dead.

The lesson is simple and it applies to homeowners as much as to contractors. The permit is the design. Installing ahead of it does not save time; it moves the risk to the end, where corrections land on finished work and every fix carries a second permit and a second inspection. If somebody offers to start before the approval comes through, ask what happens if the city asks for something different.

How it ran

This timeline reflects a project installed ahead of permit approval. The six weeks between installation and approval are the cost of that sequence, not of the work.

What we did

• Put the sequencing risk in writing to the project owner before the crew went up, the permit still being in correction (C-10).
• Identified that the drawings did not match what was being built and that the city's load schedule was missing.
• Produced the load calculations the project needed when the engineering on the other side could not, and explained how they had to be submitted for stamping.
• Diagnosed the failed final correctly as a service capacity problem rather than an installation defect.
• Established that the subpanel required its own electrical permit, rather than fitting it unpermitted.
• Installed the subpanel with its enclosure and made the stucco good, and passed the re-inspection.
• Flagged the unregistered monitoring card at close-out so the system would not sit silently reporting nothing.

System specifications

Is your project like this one?

• You have been offered an installation date before your permit is approved.
• Your final inspection failed and you have been told you need a subpanel.
• Your project is being run by one company and installed by another.
• You have been told a small electrical addition does not need its own permit.
• Your Woodland Hills property is served by LADWP, while permits are handled by LADBS.

Cali Energy in Woodland Hills

Frequently asked questions

Can solar be installed before the permit is approved?

Physically yes, and it happens. What it does not do is save time. The permit is the approved design, and the inspector checks the installation against it. If the city issues a correction after the work is finished, the correction lands on a completed system and has to be carried out twice, once as physical work and once as a permit revision. Ask what the plan is if the city asks for something different.

Why would a final inspection fail over the main panel?

Because the panel has to be able to carry the array as built, and on an older house it often cannot. The inspector is not objecting to the installation; he is objecting to what it is connected to. The usual remedies are a panel upgrade, a derate of the main breaker, or a subpanel. All three are electrical work and all three need to be on a permit.

Does adding a subpanel need its own permit?

Yes. Any electrical work needs a permit and an inspection, and a subpanel is not an exception because it is small or because it was added late. On this project an express permit was obtained within a couple of days, which is the fast route, but it was still a permit with its own inspection attached.

What is a load schedule and why did the city want one?

It is the table that sets out every circuit and load on the service, and it is what a plan checker uses to confirm the service can carry what is being added. A solar plan set without one is incomplete on any project that touches the main panel. Here its absence was one of two corrections that held the permit for six weeks.

Does Cali Energy handle permits and inspections in Woodland Hills?

Yes, end to end, and on this Woodland Hills project it also produced the load calculations the plan set was missing, established that the subpanel needed an electrical permit of its own, and carried the job through to a passed final inspection. Permits here come from LADBS and the interconnection from LADWP. Cali Energy holds California contractor license number 1032379.

What this would look like on your roof

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