Rough-in to energize
Commercial Electrical Contracting
Feeders, branch circuits, gear, devices and trim — self-performed on one contract, in a metro that runs three NEC cycles at the same time.
Most of a commercial electrical bid is not the interesting part. It is conduit racked above a grid, home runs landed in the right panel, devices trimmed to a reflected ceiling plan that has changed twice, and a service that has to clear two separate inspections before anyone turns it on. What decides whether it goes well is sequence, and knowing whose amendments apply on the parcel you are building on.
The scope, in the order it actually happens
A commercial electrical package is not one job. It is six or seven jobs that have to land in sequence, and every one of them is gated by something that is not electrical: a pour date, a roof dry-in, a ceiling grid, an inspector's calendar, a utility crew.
- Temporary power. Phoenix takes a separate commercial Temporary Power application. We carry temp power in the base bid rather than as an allowance, because nothing else we do is useful without it.
- Under-slab and underground. Sleeves, stub-ups, the grounding electrode system, feeder duct into the building. This is the part with no second attempt — after the pour, a missed penetration becomes a conversation with the structural engineer.
- Overhead rough-in. Racked conduit, home runs, boxes set to the architectural plan, firestopping at rated assemblies. Coordination with duct and sprinkler happens here or it happens badly.
- Gear and feeders. Setting service and distribution equipment, panelboards, feeder pulls and terminations. The long-lead items were ordered months before this — see service and distribution equipment.
- Branch circuits and devices. The bulk of the labor hours in most buildings, and where an estimator's unit prices are proved right or wrong.
- Trim. Fixtures, devices, plates, controls programming, panel directories, equipment labeling.
- Inspection, clearance, energize. Three events with three different owners, covered further down this page.
Self-performing this means the trench crew, the rough-in crew and the trim crew work for the same company on one contract. The benefit is not craftsmanship — it is that when the pour date moves, the rescheduling happens inside our office instead of across four subcontractors' dispatchers. We hold building, engineering, electrical and mechanical licenses, which is why the underground and the branch work need not be two separate contracts with a gap between them.
Three NEC cycles inside one metro
Arizona has no statewide building or electrical code. A.R.S. Title 9 lets each city and town adopt codes by reference, and A.R.S. section 11-861 lets the county do the same for its unincorporated areas. The only construction code adopted statewide is the fire code, through the State Fire Marshal. Which edition of the NEC your drawings get reviewed against is decided jurisdiction by jurisdiction, and two cities that share a border are under no obligation to agree.
| Jurisdiction | NEC edition | In effect |
|---|---|---|
| Phoenix | 2023 | 1 August 2025, Ordinance G-7397 |
| Buckeye | 2023 | 1 January 2025, though the energy code stayed at the 2018 IECC |
| Chandler | 2023 | Plans submitted on or after 1 July 2025, Ordinance 5108 |
| Surprise | 2023 | 1 January 2026, Ordinance 2025-14 |
| Avondale | 2023 | 1 January 2026 |
| Mesa | 2023 | 8 January 2026 |
| Glendale | 2023 | 9 January 2026 |
| Goodyear | 2023 | Adopted 23 March 2026, most provisions effective 23 June 2026 |
| Scottsdale | 2020 | 1 January 2023 |
| Queen Creek | 2020 | Ordinance 797-22, effective 1 January 2023 |
| Unincorporated Maricopa County | 2017 | Adopted 17 August 2022; the county energy code is voluntary |
| Gilbert, Peoria, Tempe | Confirm first | Published records conflict. We get the edition from the city's building department in writing before anything is drawn. |
The edition is only half of it. The local amendments are where an out-of-state contractor collects a correction notice.
- EMT alone is not an equipment grounding conductor in Phoenix, unincorporated Maricopa County or Glendale. All three amend NEC 250.118 item (4) to read "electrical metallic tubing with an additional equipment grounding conductor." Phoenix's own justification says the amendment is deliberately more restrictive than the NEC, to supplement the low-impedance path to ground. Price the wire-type EGC.
- NM cable is out of commercial buildings in Phoenix and Glendale, both of which amend NEC 334.10 to strike the Types III, IV and V structures language.
- Glendale specifies how a fixture is hung. Its addition to NEC 410.36(B) requires an intermediate or heavy-duty ceiling system, positive attachment to the grid, an attachment device rated for the full fixture weight in any direction, and for luminaires under 56 pounds and track lighting, two 12-gauge wires at opposing corners run to the structure above with at least three tight twists inside a 3-inch length.
- Phoenix invented the Elevator Disconnect Room. It is a term Phoenix added to Article 100 that does not exist in the base NEC: an enclosed room or closet outside the hoistway with a full-height door, holding the 620.51(A) disconnect along with the 620.22, 620.23 and 620.25 disconnects, required where the controller sits in the hoistway, as it does on most machine-room-less elevators. It must be on the controller's level, within 50 feet of travel from the hoistway, entered directly from the corridor. Design teams tend to find out about it late.
- Chandler wrote GFCI exceptions Phoenix did not, including one for listed HVAC equipment, while Phoenix deferred enforcement of the 2023 NEC 210.8(F) Exception No. 2 requirement for HVAC outlets until 1 March 2027. Two neighboring cities, two different answers about the same receptacle.
Phoenix also deleted three sections of the 2024 IECC outright — C405.12 automatic receptacle control, C405.13 energy monitoring and submetering, and C405.15, which in the base code would have required on-site renewable generation of at least 0.75 watts per square foot of conditioned floor area — and made the C408 commissioning provisions optional. If your specification was written against a straight 2024 IECC, a Phoenix job may be carrying controls and metering the city does not require. Worth checking before it is bought.
Rough-in for a 110-degree roof
The ampacities in NEC Table 310.16 assume a 30C (86F) ambient. The ASHRAE cooling design condition for Phoenix is roughly 110F dry bulb, and the informational note under NEC 310.15(B) points to the ASHRAE Handbook as the source for ambient temperature — which makes that number a defensible design input rather than folklore.
Table 310.15(B)(1) does the rest. At 41-45C (105-113F) a 90C conductor keeps 87 percent of its table ampacity; at 46-50C (114-122F) it keeps 82 percent, so 100 amps of conductor becomes 82. On the 75C column, which is where most terminations put you anyway, the same two rows are 82 and 75 percent.
Then the roof. One myth worth killing: the 2017 NEC did not remove the rooftop adder. It deleted the graduated table that gave adders by height above the roof and replaced it with a single rule, still present in the 2020 and 2023 editions at 310.15(B)(2) — a raceway or cable exposed to direct sunlight on or above a roof and mounted close to the surface takes 33C (60F) added to the outdoor temperature before the correction factor is applied. Read the exact clearance that triggers it out of the printed edition your AHJ enforces; the secondary sources disagree, and we do not repeat a dimension we have not verified. The exception is worth money and has survived every edition since 2017: XHHW-2 insulated conductors are not subject to the adjustment, so specifying XHHW-2 on a sun-exposed rooftop run can avoid an upsize that THHN forces.
- Sunlight-resistant marking is separate from derating. NEC 310.10(D) requires conductors exposed to direct sun to be listed or marked sunlight resistant, or covered with material that is. In addition to the temperature correction, not instead of it.
- PVC moves. NEC 352.44 requires an expansion fitting where the calculated length change in a straight run between securely mounted items reaches 1/4 inch, and NEMA practice adds 30F to the high ambient when the run is in the sun. Against a Phoenix summer and a winter low, ordinary commercial run lengths cross that threshold easily. It is a routine correction-notice item and cheap to get right at rough-in.
- NEMA 3R does not keep dust out. Type 3R is rainproof — falling rain and ice, with no windblown-dust requirement at all. Type 4 covers windblown dust, and 4X adds corrosion resistance. NEC 110.28 and Table 110.28 govern the selection, and the NEC is explicit that an IP rating is not a substitute for an enclosure type rating. For equipment that will see a monsoon haboob, 3R is often the wrong default.
Inspection, clearance, energize
These are three events belonging to three different organizations, and a schedule that treats them as one will slip.
The city inspects first. In Phoenix electrical is a separate trade permit, and commercial work runs through the SHAPE PHX portal, which took on commercial plan review and inspections on 27 April 2026; projects submitted earlier finish in the legacy system. The city's published July 2026 turnaround report is worth reading before you promise anyone a date: major commercial, over 50,000 sq ft and more than $5 million, averaged 30 days against a 45-day goal; medium averaged 33 against a 35-day goal; and minor, under 5,000 sq ft or less than $350,000, averaged 33 days against a 25-day goal. Small commercial is currently slower than large commercial. That is the opposite of what most schedules assume.
Failed inspections are priced. The first re-inspection to verify corrections is included in the permit fee. After that Phoenix charges $195 for each further re-inspection, $195 for an inspection called before the work was ready, and $195 for a no-access visit. After-hours inspections are $195 an hour, with a two-hour minimum near normal inspection hours and a three-hour minimum outside them or on weekends and holidays. A temporary or partial certificate of occupancy is $780 per request, valid up to 180 days, with no renewals.
Then the utility, which is a second inspection nobody plans for. APS requires its own inspection and approval of the service entrance equipment before a service can be energized, in addition to the AHJ's, and the contractor has to initiate it twice: once when the equipment is on site, again after the inspector's corrections are complete. The APS manual says plainly that a late request will delay the job. SRP will not energize the load side until the AHJ has approved the installation, or a Certificate In-Lieu of Electrical Clearance carrying the contractor's license number is provided. On both utilities, only utility employees energize a service. APS publishes no committed lead time for commercial new service, and we will not invent one.
A statutory lever worth knowing. A.R.S. section 9-835 requires every Arizona municipality to publish its administrative-completeness and substantive review time frames, and limits the city to one comprehensive written correction request, amendable once only to add an omitted legal requirement. Open-ended correction cycles are not something an owner simply has to absorb.
What we bid, and what we turn down
- Commercial and industrial work in Maricopa County — ground-up, tenant improvement, buildout, site work, and additions to buildings that never close.
- No service-call operation. No dispatch board, no same-day call-outs. If that is what you need, we will say so at the first phone call rather than send the wrong crew.
- Not a 24-hour emergency contractor. Posted hours are Monday to Thursday, 6:00 AM to 3:00 PM, and Friday, 6:00 AM to 2:00 PM. Off-hours and weekend work on a commercial site is something we schedule and price in advance — a planned cutover with a written sequence, agreed with the facility before anyone opens a door.
- Scope boundaries stated up front. The CR-11 electrical classification stops below 600 volts and stops at the property line; Arizona puts transmission and distribution lines, poles and street lighting in a different class. We hold a Dual Engineering license alongside the electrical one, which is why the civil and right-of-way work can stay on the same contract — see credentials. Where a scope genuinely belongs to a line contractor, we will tell you instead of bidding it.
Bid documents beat descriptions. Send the plan set, the specification sections, the addenda and the bid date through the contact page, and you get back a scoped proposal with inclusions and exclusions written out, so the number can be compared against somebody else's. If the project is outside Maricopa County, or the scope is a poor fit, we would rather say so at the invitation than three weeks into it.
Frequently asked questions
Which edition of the NEC applies to my Phoenix-area project?
It depends entirely on which jurisdiction issues the permit, because Arizona has no statewide building or electrical code. Phoenix has enforced the 2023 NEC since 1 August 2025 under Ordinance G-7397, and Buckeye, Chandler, Surprise, Avondale, Mesa, Glendale and Goodyear are also on the 2023 edition with different effective dates. Scottsdale and Queen Creek are on the 2020 NEC. Unincorporated Maricopa County is still on the 2017 NEC, two cycles behind Phoenix. For Gilbert, Peoria and Tempe we confirm the current edition directly with that city's building department before design, because the published records conflict and we will not design to an edition we have not verified.
Is EMT acceptable as the equipment grounding conductor in Phoenix?
No. Phoenix, unincorporated Maricopa County and Glendale all amend NEC 250.118 item 4 to read electrical metallic tubing with an additional equipment grounding conductor, so a wire-type ground is required rather than the raceway alone. Phoenix's published justification is that the amendment is deliberately more restrictive than the NEC in order to supplement the low-impedance path to ground. It is one of the most common ways an out-of-state contractor picks up a correction notice in the Valley, and it belongs in the estimate rather than being discovered at rough-in inspection.
How long does commercial electrical plan review take in Phoenix?
The city publishes its own turnaround report, and the July 2026 figures were these: major commercial, meaning over 50,000 square feet and more than five million dollars, averaged 30 calendar days against a 45-day goal; medium averaged 33 days against a 35-day goal; and minor, meaning under 5,000 square feet or less than 350,000 dollars, averaged 33 days against a 25-day goal. Small commercial is currently running slower than large commercial, which catches people out. Commercial applications and inspections now run through the SHAPE PHX portal, which took over that work on 27 April 2026.
Who actually turns the power on?
Only the utility. On an APS job, APS requires its own inspection and approval of the service entrance equipment before a service can be energized, in addition to the city or county inspection, and the contractor has to request it twice: once when the equipment is on site, and again after the inspector's corrections are complete. SRP will not energize the load side until the authority having jurisdiction has approved the installation, or a Certificate In-Lieu of Electrical Clearance carrying the contractor's license number has been provided. On both utilities only utility employees energize the service, and APS publishes no committed lead time for commercial new service, so we do not quote one.
What does failing an electrical inspection cost in Phoenix?
The first re-inspection to verify corrections is included in the permit fee. After that the city charges 195 dollars for each additional re-inspection, 195 dollars if an inspection is called before the work was ready, and 195 dollars for a no-access visit. After-hours inspections are 195 dollars an hour with a two-hour minimum close to normal inspection hours and a three-hour minimum outside them or on weekends and holidays. A temporary or partial certificate of occupancy is 780 dollars per request and is valid for up to 180 days, with no renewals or extensions.
Do conductors really have to be derated for Phoenix heat?
Yes, and the numbers are specific rather than a matter of judgment. The ampacities in NEC Table 310.16 are based on a 30 degree Celsius, 86 degree Fahrenheit ambient, while the ASHRAE cooling design condition for Phoenix is roughly 110 degrees Fahrenheit dry bulb. Applying Table 310.15(B)(1), a 90 degree Celsius conductor keeps 87 percent of its table ampacity in the 41 to 45 degree Celsius band and 82 percent in the 46 to 50 degree band, so 100 amps of conductor becomes 82. Anything in direct sunlight on or above a roof takes a further 60 degree Fahrenheit adder under NEC 310.15(B)(2), with an exception for XHHW-2 insulated conductors that has survived every edition since 2017.
Do you take residential work?
Our Phoenix office is set up for commercial and industrial work: ground-up buildings, tenant improvements, buildouts, site work and additions to occupied facilities. There is no dispatch board and this is not a 24-hour emergency service. If you have a permitted residential project, ask and we will tell you honestly whether it is one we should take. Posted hours are Monday through Thursday, 6:00 AM to 3:00 PM, and Friday 6:00 AM to 2:00 PM. Off-hours work on a commercial site is scheduled and priced in advance, as a planned cutover with a written sequence, rather than answered as a call-out.
Get a price on this scope
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Send us the plans, the scope, or just the problem. We will tell you what it takes. Call (602) 396-5216 or request a bid online.