FPE Panels - Hazard or hype?

[kmcmahon]

If this article has been posted before, I apologize. I was going thru some bookmarked folders and came upon it again and thought maybe some here could learn a bit about why FPE panels are generally flagged.

It's a good read.

http://www.codecheck.com/pdf/electri...%20Nov2003.pdf

[jhugenroth]

My brother does A/C installation and service, and during our conversation the other day the subject of electrical panels came up. I asked him which brand of panel in his opinion was the most troublesome that he had worked on in his career. (40 years)

He said, "it begins with an F, and I can't remember the other letters". I said FPE, and he said yeah, that's it! They are always a problem to work on, and the breakers pop out when you open the panel, and I saw one several years ago that had a fried 220 v breaker, etc. etc.

After I told him that inspectors generally agree that they are a problem, he absolutely agreed.

When the overall industry failure rate is quite a bit less than 1%, and the rate for those tested by the CPSC was above 50% I believe, then they definitely should be replaced.

Here's a link to another site

http://www.inspect-ny.com/fpe/fpepanel.htm