Electrician in Lakewood: 17,500 houses and 70-year-old panels

Built in a few years, all at once

Lakewood Park was built from late 1949 to 1953, and at its peak 110 houses were finished in a single day. Lakewood incorporated in 1954 as the first city to contract for all of its municipal services. The result is block after block of small, single-story houses, now over 70 years old.

Seven in ten homes here predate 1960 (68 percent) and 89 percent predate 1980, and 84 percent of homes are single-family. Near-identical houses mean near-identical wiring, so a problem found on one street often shows up on the next. See how to read your electrical panel.

Original services and what owners added

Many of these houses have small original services. Since then, people have added rooms, converted garages and installed central air. Each addition drew more from a service that was never sized for it. A 200-amp panel upgrade is the usual answer, and a partial rewire may follow if old branch circuits are in the walls.

For a garage conversion or backyard unit, a subpanel and the ADU electrical requirements apply. Typical costs are on the subpanel cost page.

Permits and the counter

The city’s permit office is at 5050 Clark Avenue, and the city’s electrical permit application sends submittals to Building and Safety. The posted application form is older, so ask for the current fees, the portal link and the inspection process before you budget. The electrical permits overview shows the usual steps.

Questions to bring to the first visit

Ask the electrician to read the main breaker size off the panel door and to check for signs of past heat at the breakers. Ask whether the service wire and the meter socket can carry a larger panel, and whether a garage conversion has its own subpanel or is fed from the main. A written load calculation, not a guess from the house size, should decide the panel size. The load calculation guide shows what goes into it.

Heat, charging and the utility

Lakewood is in climate zone 8, inland of the Long Beach coast, so summer afternoons run hotter than at the beach. Houses with window air conditioners or swamp coolers often move to central air, which is a big new load.

SCE serves the city, and the utility stays the same across the Long Beach line. SCE sets the meter only after the building department confirms the work passed inspection, so the city’s time comes first and the utility’s follows. Read do I need a panel upgrade for an EV charger.

Lakewood is flat and built out, with no wildfire shutoff reported. Neighbors include Long Beach and Bellflower.