Electrician in South Los Angeles, California

South Los Angeles is largely prewar and postwar single family housing with a heavy layer of added rear units and garage conversions. Sorting out legal metering is usually where the job starts.

South Los Angeles covers a large area, and its housing gets newer as you go south. The northern neighborhoods near Adams and Vernon have 1900s to 1920s bungalows and two story houses, while areas further south such as Vermont Knolls, Harvard Park and Chesterfield Square are built out with 1920s to 1940s homes and postwar tracts. Lots are typically narrow, and a large share have rear houses, duplexes or garage conversions. Commercial corridors like Vermont, Western, Broadway and Slauson carry older one and two story buildings.

Each era leaves its own problems. Older bungalows have knob and tube and fuse panels, while postwar houses often have Zinsco or Federal Pacific panels installed when they were new. Many properties carry one small service shared by a front house and one or more rear units. Owners call about breakers that trip under AC, about legalizing additions through the city's ADU process, and about panel replacements that insurers require. Small landlords call about separating meters for each unit.

What South Los Angeles properties usually need