Pelican Coast Electric inspects commercial electrical systems for the people who have to make a decision from the findings. Estimators pricing a tenant improvement, property managers scoping deferred maintenance, and buyers conducting due diligence get a documented condition report on the service, distribution, branch circuits, and life safety equipment, with photos, code references, and a repair scope they can bid from.
A commercial electrical inspection is a documented condition assessment of everything between the utility point of connection and the last device on the branch circuit. We start at the service entrance and work down: service conductors and grounding, the main switchboard or switchgear, metering, transformers, distribution panels, subpanels, feeders, branch circuits, and the terminations at each of them. Overcurrent protection gets checked against the conductors it protects and against the equipment ratings printed on the nameplate, not against what the panel schedule claims.
From there the walk covers the equipment your tenants and staff interact with. Receptacles and GFCI protection in kitchens, restrooms, rooftops, and wet areas. Lighting circuits, emergency lighting, and exit signage. Disconnects and working clearance around every piece of gear. Bonding and grounding at the service, at separately derived systems, and at metallic piping. Panel labeling, circuit directories, and equipment identification, which sound minor until an electrician is standing in front of an unlabeled panel during an outage. Each finding lands in the report with a photo, a location, and the code section it relates to.
The authority having jurisdiction inspects permitted work. A city or county inspector reviews a defined scope against the adopted code, signs it off, and closes the permit. That inspection is a pass or fail on the work in front of them, and it says nothing about the rest of the building. Anything installed before the current code, anything a previous tenant added without pulling a permit, and anything that has degraded since the last sign-off sits outside that scope entirely.
Our inspection is independent, and you order it for your own decision making. It covers the whole system rather than one permit, and the report belongs to you rather than to the permit file. That is why estimators and property managers use it as a planning document: it tells you what is in the building, what correcting it will cost, and which items can wait. When the findings call for permitted corrections, our commercial electrician team performs them under CSLB license #1133193 and carries the work through final inspection with the city.
Most inspection requests arrive at one of a handful of moments. If your situation is on this list, a walk gets you numbers you can act on instead of an allowance you have to defend later.
Pricing a tenant improvement and needing to know whether the existing service and panel capacity support the new load before the bid goes out.
Taking over a property with no electrical records, no as-builts, and panel schedules that stopped matching the building years ago.
Due diligence on a purchase, where the electrical line in the capital reserve has been an estimate rather than a measured scope.
An insurance carrier, lender, or corporate tenant asking for documentation of electrical condition before they will write, fund, or sign.
Repeat nuisance tripping, flickering, warm panel covers, or a burning smell that a service call cleared once and that came back.
A correction notice or failed inspection on work someone else performed, where you need an independent read on the full system.
Building stock here spans seven decades, and the electrical systems tell you which decade you are standing in. Postwar retail and office along the older commercial corridors was built for a fraction of today’s load, and the panels reflect it: 200-amp services carrying a plug load nobody designed for, subpanels added one tenant at a time, and feeders that were adequate when the space held filing cabinets instead of a server closet and a break room full of appliances. Inside those panels we find the predictable consequences, including double-tapped breakers, undersized neutrals, and a panel with no remaining space beside a subpanel someone bolted to the wall to make room.
Coastal property carries its own pattern. Salt air works on exterior enclosures, meter sockets, and rooftop disconnects, and corrosion at a lug or a bus connection raises resistance long before anything visibly fails. On buildings from Newport Beach through Dana Point we pay particular attention to exterior gear, rooftop equipment, and anything that has spent twenty years in marine air with a gasket that stopped sealing. A finding there is usually cheap to correct and expensive to ignore.
The third pattern is tenant improvement residue. Every build out leaves something behind: circuits abandoned in place but still energized, junctions closed up above a ceiling that was later replaced, lighting controls that no longer match the room they control after a demising wall moved, and panel schedules that describe a floor plan from two tenants ago. None of it is dramatic on its own. Together it is why an estimator pricing the next build out from the existing drawings ends up eating a change order.
Those three patterns account for most of what lands in the priority tiers on our reports. Knowing which one you are dealing with before the scope goes out is the difference between a number you can defend and an allowance you hope covers it.
We confirm the building type, square footage, number of services and panels, and what the inspection has to answer. You get a written quote and a time window before anyone mobilizes, and we schedule around tenant hours where the work touches occupied space.
Our technicians open and photograph the service equipment, distribution, and branch panels, record nameplate and setting data, verify grounding and bonding, test representative receptacles and GFCI devices, and check clearances and labeling. The equipment list agreed on the scope call sets how long the walk takes.
Every observation is graded by priority: a safety item to correct now, a code item to correct on a schedule, or a maintenance note to budget. Each one carries a photo, a location, and the code or standard behind it, so nothing in the report is a judgment call you cannot check.
You receive the written report plus a priced repair scope broken into the same priority tiers. Take the scope to bid, hand it to your own vendor, or have us perform the corrections. The report is yours either way.
The deliverable is built to be forwarded. Estimators drop it into a bid file, property managers attach it to a capital plan, and buyers hand it to counsel without having to translate anything first.
Every observation documented with a photo, a location, a priority, and the code or standard it references.
Service size, panel brand and rating, breaker inventory, and available capacity recorded panel by panel.
Circuit directories verified against what the circuits actually feed, so the next electrician on site is not guessing.
Findings converted into a line-item scope with pricing, separated into immediate, scheduled, and budget tiers.
Available capacity at the service and at each panel, with the constraint called out where a planned load will not fit.
Dated field photography of the service, the gear, and every finding, sized for insurers, lenders, and ownership files.
Findings are written against published standards, not opinion. California adopts the National Electrical Code as Part 3 of Title 24, and that is the code every finding on your report references. Existing installations are judged against the code in force when they were installed, so the report separates what is legally existing from what is an actual violation. That distinction is the difference between a note and a line item you have to price.
Maintenance condition comes from NFPA 70B, which sets out how commercial electrical equipment should be maintained and on what interval. Worker safety and working clearance reference NFPA 70E and OSHA 1910 subpart S. Where equipment carries arc flash labeling we check whether the labels exist and whether they look current, and we note where an arc flash study belongs in the scope. Energy code items, including lighting controls in a space that has been reconfigured, reference Title 24 Part 6. Every inspection and every correction runs under CSLB license #1133193, a C-10 electrical contractor license, and we handle the code corrections and compliance side when a jurisdiction has already cited the property.
Not every inspection asks the same question, and the scope changes with the reason you ordered it. Timing matters most on the estimating side. An inspection run before the bid tells you whether the panel has capacity, whether the feeder needs upsizing, and whether the existing gear is a brand still supported for parts. Those three answers move a tenant improvement number more than almost anything else on the electrical line, and finding them after the contract is signed turns them into change orders you have to justify.
We inspect commercial property across Orange County, from single-tenant retail and office suites to multi-building campuses with several services and a house meter. Multi-property owners typically phase the work, starting with the buildings whose electrical calls come in most often, which keeps the first invoice small and puts documentation on the highest-risk gear first. Properties on a recurring schedule move from a one-time inspection into our electrical preventive maintenance program, where the first report becomes the baseline and each one after it is a comparison rather than a fresh discovery.
The authority having jurisdiction inspects permitted work against the adopted code and signs off on that permit. It is a pass or fail on a defined scope. Our inspection is independent and covers the whole system, including everything that was never permitted, everything installed before the current code, and everything a previous tenant left behind. You order it for your own decision making, and the report belongs to you rather than to the permit file.
Price depends on building size, how many services and panels are in scope, and whether the report needs a priced repair scope attached. A single-service retail or office suite is quoted after a short scope call. A multi-building property with several services is quoted per service. You get the number before we mobilize, not after.
Field time depends on how many services, panels, and branch circuits are in scope, and we set that equipment list on the scope call so the schedule is known in advance. The walk is largely non-invasive: we open equipment enclosures, which requires portions of the gear to be de-energized, and we schedule that window around tenant operations. Larger properties are phased so no tenant loses power for more than a planned interval.
Most of what we inspect was installed by someone else, often decades ago. That is the point of an independent inspection. We document what is there, reference each finding to the standard behind it, and note where the original installation was legal when performed even though it would not be approved today.
Either way works. The report and the priced scope are yours to take to bid. If you want us to carry out the corrections, we are a C-10 licensed contractor and we pull permits and see the work through final inspection. There is no obligation attached to the inspection itself.
NFPA 70B frames electrical maintenance as an interval-based program rather than a one-time event, with the interval driven by equipment type, condition, and how critical the load is. In practice most Orange County commercial properties run an annual condition inspection, with a fresh inspection any time the service changes, a tenant space is reconfigured, or the building changes hands.
We inspect commercial property throughout Orange County, including the communities below and the surrounding region. Crews mobilize from Newport Beach, which keeps travel time short on multi-building walks and on the return visit when corrections are approved.
Start with a scope call. You get a written quote, a defined equipment list, and a schedule before anyone mobilizes. If you are pricing a tenant improvement or closing on a building, tell us the deadline and we will work the field visit around it. Contact Pelican Coast Electric to book your commercial electrical inspection.
