General Contractor in Pasadena, CA

DN Builders Group is a licensed general building contractor working across Pasadena — kitchen and bathroom remodels, whole-home renovations, additions and ADUs, and multifamily work. Plans and permits go through Pasadena's own Permit Center, utility work is coordinated with Pasadena Water and Power, and historic review is built into the schedule rather than discovered at submittal.

What we build in Pasadena

Pasadena is its own city, and the counter proves it

Pasadena is not under LADBS and not under LA County Building and Safety. It runs its own Planning and Community Development Department out of the Permit Center at 175 N. Garfield Ave, with its own plan check, its own fee schedule and its own inspection calendar. It also has a Design and Historic Preservation counter that its neighbours mostly do not, and in the landmark districts exterior work visible from the street needs a Certificate of Appropriateness before a building permit will issue. We wrote the long version in remodeling in Pasadena, what to know, and the three-department comparison in permits in Glendale, Burbank and Los Angeles. Pasadena is a fourth process, and a contractor who only works one of the others will be learning yours on your job.

Pasadena Water and Power changes the electrical scope

PWP is a municipal utility, so anything touching the meter runs through Pasadena rather than through LADWP or Southern California Edison, and the timelines belong to PWP. On most remodels the electrical service, not the finishes, decides the schedule: add an island, a second bathroom, a heat pump or an EV charger to a house on a 60 or 100 amp panel and the panel upgrade becomes the critical path. We laid out how three municipal utilities handle this differently in our comparison of panel upgrades.

Being a municipal customer also pays. PWP runs its own residential rebates for heat pumps and heat pump water heaters, electric ranges and dryers, insulation, EV chargers, rooftop solar and — less commonly offered — residential battery storage. After the Eaton Fire, PWP also amended its water rebate programs with the Metropolitan Water District to support customers rebuilding. That money is separate from anything federal, and most of it survived the 2026 federal changes; we track what is still live in energy rebates for LA homeowners in 2026. Every one of those rebates needs a finaled permit, which is the practical reason not to let anyone talk you into unpermitted work.

Pasadena checks your permits when you sell

This is the Pasadena rule that catches people, and it has nothing to do with design. Under Ordinance No. 7337 and Pasadena Municipal Code Section 14.17, the owner of a single family house, condominium, townhouse or duplex must obtain a presale certificate before escrow closes. To take the cheap self-certification path, the owner certifies three things: no open code compliance cases, living area within 10 percent of the LA County Assessor's record, and no unpermitted construction, addition, conversion or accessory structure larger than 120 square feet. Miss any of them and the property goes to a city inspection instead.

That turns a permit shortcut into a problem with a date on it. A converted garage, an enclosed patio counted as living space or a bootleg bathroom will surface at the worst possible moment, and the fix is the one we would have done properly the first time. If you inherited someone else's work, legalizing unpermitted work is usually cheaper than discovering it in escrow.

Soft-story buildings have a Pasadena deadline

If you own apartments here, this one is live. Pasadena adopted its own mandatory seismic retrofit ordinance, No. 7345, in May 2019, covering roughly 493 wood-frame buildings permitted on or before November 12, 1976 whose ground floor has parking or other open space creating a soft, weak or open-front wall line. Single family residences are exempt, and so are parcels with four or fewer units. Notices went out by priority group — December 5, 2019 for Priority 1, December 2, 2020 for Priority 2 and March 3, 2021 for Priority 3 — and the ordinance allows seven years from the notice to complete construction. Priority 1 owners are therefore working against December 5, 2026.

The engineering is the same family of work we described for retrofits in Burbank and the Valley, but the deadlines, the priority groups and the screening form are Pasadena's own. If you are inside that window, the useful move is to get drawings and a permit in hand now and schedule the steel around your tenants, rather than competing for a structural engineer in the last quarter.

Licensed and bonded

DN Builders Group Inc holds an active California General Building license (#1139710), carries a $25,000 surety bond, and is fully insured. In California any project over $500 in labor and materials legally requires a licensed contractor. Verify the license with the California Contractors State License Board before you sign anything — with us or with anyone else. Here is how to check a contractor's license in about two minutes.

How we work

We walk the space, talk honestly about budget, and give you a fixed, itemized scope before anything is demolished. Permits are pulled by us. Change orders are approved in writing, never sprung at the end. You get a weekly update, every week, and a detailed walkthrough when we finish. You can see finished work on our portfolio page.

Questions

Are you a licensed contractor in Pasadena?

Yes. DN Builders Group Inc holds an active California General Building contractor license (#1139710), carries a $25,000 surety bond, and is fully insured. The license covers work in Pasadena and throughout California, and can be verified with the California Contractors State License Board.

Do you pull permits with the City of Pasadena?

Yes. Pasadena runs its own Permit Center at 175 N. Garfield Ave, separate from LADBS and from LA County Building and Safety. We manage plans, permits and inspections as part of the build, including the Design and Historic Preservation review that landmark district properties need before a building permit will issue.

What does a remodel cost in Pasadena?

A bathroom remodel typically runs $25,000 to $50,000, a kitchen remodel $45,000 to $90,000, and a whole-home renovation $150 to $400 per square foot. These are typical Los Angeles market ranges, not a quote. Pasadena's older housing stock often pushes the systems side of the budget higher. We give a fixed, itemized bid after walking the space.

Does Pasadena check permits when a house is sold?

Yes. Under Ordinance No. 7337 and Pasadena Municipal Code Section 14.17, the owner of a single family house, condominium, townhouse or duplex must obtain a presale certificate before escrow closes. To self-certify, the owner has to state that the property has no open code compliance cases, that living area does not exceed the LA County Assessor record by 10 percent or more, and that there is no unpermitted construction, addition, conversion or accessory structure larger than 120 square feet. Permitted, finaled work keeps that step simple.

Where else we work

Glendale, Burbank, North Hollywood, and Greater Los Angeles.