Electrician in Whittier

What we do in Whittier

Everything we do in Whittier, with what each job usually involves here. The photos are from our own jobs.

Panel upgrades in Whittier

Main service panel upgrades for Whittier houses, applied for through the city's online-only residential permit path, with Edison's location approval and its portal request coordinated before the change-out.

More on panel upgradesCall (844) 430-7681

EV charger installation in Whittier

Home chargers in Whittier, starting with a load calculation on panels that often date from the pre-war or postwar years.

More on EV charger installationCall (844) 430-7681

Electrical repair & troubleshooting in Whittier

Tracking down dead circuits, warm outlets and breakers that trip in Whittier's older houses, Uptown apartments and storefronts with wiring from several eras.

More on electrical repair & troubleshootingCall (844) 430-7681

Rewiring in Whittier

Room-by-room or whole-house rewiring for pre-1941 Whittier homes and houses in the Hadley-Greenleaf, Central Park, College Hills and Earlham districts, keeping the work inside where possible so the exterior stays as it is.

More on rewiringCall (844) 430-7681

Lighting & ceiling fans in Whittier

Interior lighting for restored Whittier homes, and exterior and landscape lighting planned with the historic district rules and the hillside fire maps in mind.

More on lighting & ceiling fansCall (844) 430-7681

Outlets, GFCI & new circuits in Whittier

Grounded and GFCI-protected outlets in place of two-prong ones, plus new 240-volt circuits for heat pumps, dryers and induction ranges in houses wired long before they existed.

More on outlets, GFCI & new circuitsCall (844) 430-7681

Mobilehome electrical in Whittier

Repairs, added circuits and panel work for residents and owners of Whittier's mobile home parks, with the inspecting agency confirmed under the state's mobilehome park rules.

More on mobilehome electricalCall (844) 430-7681

Commercial electrical in Whittier

Tenant improvements, lighting, dedicated circuits and panel work for shops, restaurants and offices in Uptown, along Whittier Boulevard and around The Quad and Whittwood Town Center.

More on commercial electricalCall (844) 430-7681

Also: subpanels, dedicated circuits, 240-volt outlets for dryers and ranges, exterior and security lighting, hard-wired smoke alarms, and small repairs of every kind.

Working in Whittier

Infinity Electrical is a licensed electrical contractor taking on panel and service upgrades, EV charger installs, rewiring, repairs and commercial electrical work in Whittier. Inside the city limits, permits come from the City of Whittier's Building & Safety staff in the Community Development Department, and Southern California Edison owns the poles, lines and meter. Because Whittier belongs to Clean Power Alliance, CPA is the default supplier of the energy on most residential bills.

Whittier is older than most of its neighbours. The city's own history says the Pickering Land and Water Company laid out a Quaker colony on the former Thomas Ranch in 1887, set aside 20 acres for what became Whittier College, and that the town incorporated in 1898 with 585 residents, taking the name of the Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier. Citrus and walnut groves, and oil, paid the bills. Through the 1930s most building stayed in and around Uptown; then the car pulled growth out along Whittier Boulevard, and after the war the orchards and oil fields gave way to subdivisions, with the population climbing from 16,115 in 1940 to 72,863 in 1970.

That history leaves Whittier with an unusually wide range of wiring. A house can date from the first decade of the colony, from the 1920s hillside lots of College Hills, or from a 1960s tract on annexed land, and each era was wired for a very different list of appliances. Infinity Electrical Inc. (CSLB #1100231) looks at the panel, the meter location and what you plan to add before writing an estimate, because in Whittier the age of the house often decides the scope.

What's common in Whittier homes

Whittier's housing element counts 29,721 housing units in 2020, about 69% of them single-family, 30% in multi-family buildings and a small share of mobile homes, spread across neighbourhoods built more than a century apart.

• Colony-era and pre-war houses. Through the 1930s most new construction in Whittier stayed in the greater Uptown area, with homes packed around the commercial core. Houses from that period may still carry original or partly replaced wiring, small services and few grounded outlets. Rewiring is mostly interior work, which the city's preservation rules leave to the ordinary building permit.
• Postwar tracts on annexed land. The city's history describes how annexations in the 1950s and 1960s, together with subdivisions on former farmland and oil fields, turned Whittier into a bedroom community of more than 72,000 people by 1970. Services sized for that era often run short once a heat pump, an induction range and a car charger are added, and a load calculation shows whether a panel upgrade comes first.
• Apartments and rentals. The housing element counts 8,899 multi-family units, about 30% of the stock, and puts renters at roughly 42.5% of occupied homes. In older buildings, common requests from owners and managers include GFCI protection, kitchen and laundry circuits, meter bank questions and breakers that trip.
• Uptown homes and new infill. The housing element notes the Uptown Whittier Specific Plan allows 50 or more units per acre in its core areas. Mixed-use and apartment projects there bring new services and tenant panels next to century-old storefronts.
• Mobile home parks. The housing element names four mobile home parks in the city with 149 units between them. The state's Department of Housing and Community Development is the enforcement agency for mobilehome parks unless a local agency has taken that role with HCD's approval, so we confirm who inspects before starting work in a park.
• Shops along the boulevard. The city's profile places most of its specialty shops in Uptown Whittier, at The Quad and at Whittwood Town Center, with the commercial strip along Whittier Boulevard that grew up in the car era. Those are where tenant lighting, dedicated circuits and panel changes come up for restaurants, offices and retail.

Permits and power in Whittier

The City of Whittier (ZIP codes 90601, 90602, 90603, 90604 and 90605) covers about 14.8 square miles roughly 12 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles. A Whittier mailing address does not always mean a City of Whittier parcel. The state senate district's description names four unincorporated areas around the city: Rose Hills (North Whittier), East Whittier, South Whittier and Los Nietos. ZIP 90605 takes in part of unincorporated South Whittier as well as the city, and 90606 is shared by Santa Fe Springs, Pico Rivera, Whittier and unincorporated West Whittier-Los Nietos. Electrical permits for unincorporated parcels come from LA County Public Works, which has a South Whittier Building and Safety Office and takes permit applications through its EPIC-LA portal. We check which side of the line the parcel is on before quoting.

Permits in the City of Whittier. The city's Building & Safety page says permits are required for most electrical improvements, and it has moved several common residential permits online only: EV chargers, main service panel upgrades and electrical rewires are on that list, applied for through the Online Permits and Inspections portal rather than at the counter. Residential electrical permits for exterior installations also need Planning approval, and an electrical service upgrade needs Edison's approval of the location before it goes forward. Inspections are requested through the same portal or by phone. We coordinate the permit and the inspections as part of the job.

Edison and Clean Power Alliance. Whittier appears on Clean Power Alliance's list of member communities, and a 2022 city roster of outside agency appointments shows a council member serving as Whittier's delegate to the CPA board. CPA buys the energy; SCE delivers it, maintains the lines, reads the meter and sends one bill. For panel work the supplier makes no difference. An upgrade or meter spot on an existing service goes through SCE's Building, Renovation and Project Planning Portal, while removing or relocating SCE equipment is arranged by phone, and we line that up with the city's sign-off on the meter location.

Historic districts and pre-1941 buildings. Whittier has four locally designated historic districts, according to the city: Central Park (45 properties, designated 1990), Hadley-Greenleaf (more than 190 properties, 1990), College Hills (97 properties, 2002), described as the city's first planned hillside development and subdivided in 1923, and Earlham (seven properties in an early Whittier College neighborhood, 1903-1940, designated 2011). The city's preservation rules also reach beyond the districts to vintage buildings, defined as those built before 1941. Interior work that does not change the outside of the building does not need a Certificate of Appropriateness, so most rewiring stays a building-permit matter. A new meter location, exterior conduit or a visible service mast is different: exterior work may qualify for an administrative waiver from the Historic Resources Commission secretary if it does not noticeably change the building's appearance; otherwise it needs a full certificate heard by the Commission, so we raise it with the city before the Edison request.

Uptown after 1987. The Southern California Earthquake Data Center's summary of the October 1, 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake says the most severe damage was in Whittier's Uptown district, with its many unreinforced masonry buildings, while wood-frame homes came through with relatively little damage. The Uptown Specific Plan calls for historically sensitive infill across roughly 185 acres. When we open a wall or ceiling in an older Uptown commercial building, we expect to find wiring from more than one era behind it.

Hillside fire maps. CAL FIRE released updated Fire Hazard Severity Zone maps for Local Responsibility Areas in Southern California on March 24, 2025, and Whittier held a public workshop on them in June 2025, with the Puente Hills Habitat Preservation Authority speaking on brush clearance in the surrounding hillsides. The city notes the maps may affect building codes and defensible-space rules. If your house is near the hills, we check its zone before planning exterior lighting, a detached-garage feeder or other outdoor electrical work.

Solar already on the roof. Whittier issues eligible residential solar permits through SolarAPP+, but the city's SolarAPP+ page notes that panel upgrades are not eligible for that automated path. Infinity Electrical does not install solar. If your house has an existing system, we plan the panel, charger or circuit work around it and apply for the electrical permit on its own track.

The permits and utilities guide explains the whole picture for the three counties we serve.

Around Whittier

The communities around Whittier are all on SCE's service-territory list, but their permit offices and power suppliers differ. Hacienda Heights, set in the Puente Hills to the north, is unincorporated, so its permits come from LA County Public Works; the same goes for South Whittier, East Whittier, Rose Hills and Los Nietos. Unincorporated county areas are also in CPA territory. Pico Rivera, Santa Fe Springs and Norwalk run their own cities and are not on Clean Power Alliance's member list, and La Habra is across the county line in Orange County. Farther west, our Downey page covers another Gateway city served by CPA.

• Pico Rivera
• Santa Fe Springs
• La Habra
• La Habra Heights
• Hacienda Heights
• South Whittier
• Norwalk

See the full list of areas we cover across Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura counties.