Are the 15A and 20A’s worth anything? Is a panel worth selling? I have one full of breakers that I don’t need. Would it be better to save them for a rainy day?
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Replies
people buy them all the time...
that brand of panel is seriously dangerous...
they've contributed to more than house fires and the loss of life, IIRC, than the other major brands combined...
junk it...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
Agree junk; but, junk is TOO good a name for the ol' stablok. Call'em trash.
They would be usefull in a barn or something just for use as disconnect switches.
internal shorts...
not a good plan...
trash it is...
tuff to live with knowing you may have made somebody homeless at this time of the year or killed them...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
You could contact any of the many companies that rebuild breakers. They are small, poorly designed from jump street and probably of little value. Shipping would likely eat up most of the profits. If they were 100A units you would probably have more luck getting a rebuilder interested but asking can't hurt. All they can say is no.
You could call around to local electrical contractors and see if they would be interested in buying them. If they were installed in your area there are likely other panels that need them. If you had/have a panel that uses this brand, besides telling you to replace it, you might need a breaker eventually.
An electrical contractor that does service work may have a need for these units but, if they want them at all, don't expect a windfall in profits. A couple of bucks a piece, maybe $5.
Some contractors would be interested. Others not. When I was doing service work I have a wide array of salvaged breakers. In fact the company used to get regular calls for oddball and obsolete breakers.
When doing a house inspection, the presence of a F/P Stablock panel invokes an immediate "Electrical HAZARD" warning to the prospective buyer.
Most buyers will mandate the replacement of the F/P panel before the deal will close.
USRDA mandates their replacement before closure.
Not even in a barn......if there is a short these F/P breakers fail to trip properly and the faulted circuit continues to BURN.
Trash!
................Iron Helix
USRDA?Fed Pac stabloks are a subject often drawing strong views.They were investigated by the CPSC in the late 80's early 90's. No recall was issued. Critics claim it was because they ran out of money. So far as I've seen, those critics have not provided evidence for that claim.They have been lambasted on the internet, with an inspection company from NY seemingly leading the chargeAccording to my main electrician, at one point they went through a period of economic struggles and were not able to provide field support, and thus lost a lot of support among some electricians.Many electricians I know and respect say they do not see any more problems with FedPacs than any other similarly aged breakers.There are also electricians who report otherwise.
The few fire inspector and fire marshall types I have spoken with have not supported the adverse views on them. (Compare that with uniform condemnation by fire types of thermal insulation over K&T, a practice many electricians accept, saying "we see thousnads of houses like that.")<!---->
I probably see 3-4 FedPac panels a month, on average. I have not seen any higher degree of visual evidence of problems with them than with other similarly aged panels.Would I sell any stablok stuff I had lying around? Nope, why take the chance of being hauled into court?Would I live in a house with them? Yes. Would I replace the panel? Yes, if for no other reason than avoiding resale issues.
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Sojourners: Christians for Justice and Peace
Edited 1/7/2005 8:19 am ET by Bob Walker
USRDA is the acronym for United States Rural Developement Administration formerly labeled FmHA, Farm Home administration, and is in the "business" of providing low cost loans to entry level buyers. Most of the houses that I inspect for the USRDA are under 100k.....most hover around 40-60K. I see some real junk for sale.
USRDA put together a purchase package at low interest/long terms and adds in addition $$$ to bring the house up to minimum specs. USRDA does not buy the inspection..the potential owner does..and there is the downfall. Most of these potential buyer are strapped for cash and often will not pay the extra $$.
As far as the conflict of opinion over F/P breakers and the writing of hazardous conditions in a home inspection......
I attended an ASHI St.Louis Chapter Seminar in February o4 and one of the speakers was Dr. Jesse Aronstein PhD. Dr. Aronstein is a New York licensed PE in Mechanical and Materials engineering. He discussed his laboratory testing of aluminum wiring systems and F/P breaker failures under laboratory conditions.
His collection of data on F/P breakers under circuit fault conditions showed a failure rate considerable higher than normal. He considers them to be a RED TAG item, as they have a tendency to stick mid throw when the circuit is faulted thus leaving the fault to continue to burn.
He also found that manually cycling each breaker on a maintenance basis reduced the number of failures. As he commented..."and what homeowner is going to manually cycle his breakers on a regular schedule." Aronstein's collection of failed panels that have been sent in for analysis was astounding.
The other failure that he found was with the stablock method of holding the breaker to the main buss bar was also at risk of failing after arcing due to loose fit and subsequent heat deformation and overheating of the panel.
At any rate.....I write to CMA in some cases...and list the websites available on this topic for the client to check.
Often the F/P panels look fine when I open them for inspection............but I opened one while my client watched and as the cover came off 6 or 8 breakers came out from the buss bar and as I tried to reinsert most refused to cooperate.
War stories.......FWIW
.................................................. Iron Helix
Thanks for the info.Do you have any sort of write up that Aronstein presentation? ASHI Reporter or Chapter publication?
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Sojourners: Christians for Justice and Peace
Bob,
There was only a short bio on that weekends flyer...but no more than the info I gave above. This man was in his 70's+ and quite a fireball....as well as an excellent speaker.
You might want to contact Chris Harrawood, who was the St. Louis Chapter President last year or check with ASHI as to who is President this year. I know they will have the scoop on Aronstein.
Best Regards,
............Iron Helix
Thanks.I've spent a fair amount of time looking at the FedPAc info and asking every electrician I run into.I've read and seen and heard a lot of opinions, but the anti's all seem to go back to that Inspect-NY guy ....Hmmmm. I just went back to his site and he has significantly increased his documentatiuon of the problems since the last time I was there.Some interesting stuff at, and linked from http://www.inspect-ny.com/fpe/CPSCsummary.htm
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Sojourners: Christians for Justice and Peace
I believe, hard to tell from anecdotal evidence from a single electrician or company, that I have observed a higher rate of FP-stabloc breakers failing in the closed position. That is failing to react to fault conditions. IMHO the worse possible failure modality as this means a short has to blow or burn clear for the fault to stop generating heat. Essentially the wiring becomes the fuse. Very bad.Possibly this is related to the general age of the breakers and a failure to 'exercise' the breakers regularly. That is it is generally good advice to turn all breakers off and back on with the minimum load possible to keep the pivot points from seizing in place. This may also serve to redistribute the grease on these pivots.The other breaker make that seems more prone to this particularly bad failure mode is the XO series. Again possibly to age or lack of exercise but I have seen more newly manufactured breakers fail at what would appear to be a higher than normal rate. Which makes me think it may be an inherently faulty or fallible design.With the easy access to cheap, reliable and proven design available in breakers today I do not recommend that these obsolete panels be reused and generally recommend that existing panels of these two manufactures models be replaced as soon as practical.On the other hand I can't say I have seen any fires caused by these obsolete units. Of more concern is that firemen may have seen more. Hundreds of these panels are still in operation so while I think they need replacement I don't see any advantage to becoming alarmist about these makes. Typically poorer folks in older homes, where I see these panels, are more concerned with keeping taters on the table than the odd chance that their electrical panel could cause a problem.I don't know of any practical mechanism for making a panel change more affordable and typically the inspectors, barring a clear and obvious hazardous situation, are reluctant to burden these people with requirements they cannot afford. I have had more luck suggesting changes and coordinating with inspectors to get these older panels replaced on rental units, prior to the sale of a house and apartments.More than once a contractor I used to work for had made a 'Good will', non-profit, project of replacing these panels for poor and elderly customers but there is a limit to how much of this he could afford to subsidize.
IH: clarification re:"Not even in a barn"
Note that in my original post I said for disconnect switches only, I should have clarified that this is not the same thing as using as a circuit breaker.
I have used old stablok stuff in my own dwellings for such items as A/C disconnect switches on the outside of the house next to the compressor/condensor ___ with a SD QO breaker upstream. (why throw away something usefull when there is a proper use for everything, heck, even have a few Zinsco breakers, think in the old pump house)
XHammer: Our local hardware store sells used FP breakers for about $5 like 4Lorn said, they would maybe pay you a buck apiece. I've seen everything on ebay, you could try selling them there.
Until I have enough cash to replace my box, I might be interested in a few 15's and 20's; drop me an email.
Rick - post some info in the profile so I'd have an idea of the postage.
If you ACTUALLY really do want some, I'll send you a couple of each 15/20 free, post paid.
I'll send them from a ficticious address (like Lukas) so I can't be sued <G> .
More than kind of you-
If you click on my name above, there should be a link "send email" so you can drop me a line. Zip code is 02472. I will drop you an email too.
So you know why I need them, I am currently the "caretaker" of my grandparent's old 2-family, gradually (and I mean gradually) fixing problems while saving money for the big-tik items (chimney re-build, complete ee overhaul, furnance, etc.)
I don't like these FPE breakers, particularly the thin ones (mostly what we have), at the very least there is very little material to them and the plastic bodies often break. I check the thing all the time, and replaced a breaker last month when I noticed the body was split in half.
Only place I have found for new replacements is an outfit out of NJ, I think 15amp breakers run about 30 each. I don't like spending $ on something I am going to replace, and these boxes will be the first to go-
edit: I tried to send you an email, but it got bounced back-
Edited 1/8/2005 11:48 am ET by RickD
I forgot to upgrade my profile, attbi.com quit being recognized by comcast.net first of year guess I need to upgrade profile. Need to update anyway due to a Luka post last week.
A million thanks to Junkhound who sent me a few of these suspect :) breakers in the mail- They should hold me over until the full upgrade later this year-
Thanks!