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FPE Stab-Lok HAZARDS & REPAIRS WEBSITE
SUMMARY OF the FPE Stab-Lok PROBLEM
FPE HAZARD ARTICLES, STUDIES
FPE Stab-Lok TECHNICAL REPORT
HOW TO IDENTIFY FPE & FP
REPORTS OF FAILURES
  FPE FIRE & FAILURE PHOTOS
  FPE FAILURE FIELD REPORTS
HOW TO REPORT FPE INCIDENTS
FPE REPAIR ELECTRICIANS
FPE REPLACEMENT BREAKERS
FPE REPLACEMENT PANEL COSTS
CANADIAN VERSIONS of FPE Stab-Lok
FPE Stab-lok: FIRES WAITING TO HAPPEN
ADVICE TO HOME BUYERS w/ FPE PANELS
HOME INSPECTION LANGUAGE for FPE Stab-Lok

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Glowing electric panel interior, FPE breaker failed to trip Federal Pacific Electric (FPE) Panel Fire and Failure Photos involving FPE Stab-Lok Equipment
FPEaPedia ©

  • Field reports of FPE Stab-Lok panel or breaker incidents
  • Field photographs of FPE Stab-Lok equipment failures

Consumer Note: replacement FPE Stab-Lok circuit breakers are unlikely to reduce the failure risk of this equipment. We recommend replacing the Federal Pacific Electric Stab-Lok panel entirely. Our site offers impartial, unbiased advice without conflicts of interest. We will block advertisements which we discover or readers inform us are associated with bad business practices, false-advertising, or junk science. Our contact info is at inspect-ny.com/appointment.htm.

This document provides field reports and photographs of Federal Pacific FPE Stab-Lok equipment fires, overheating, trip-failures, burn ups and other dangerous failures.

Readers of this article should also see Federal No-Trips: Anecdotal FPE Failure Reports (separate document) Email from Electricians, Home Inspectors, Building Owners, Others - U.S. and Canada, and FPE Stab-Lok HAZARDS & REPAIRS WEBSITE - the main FPE Hazard Website. To report an electrical problem with this equipment see REPORT YOUR FAILURE.

© Copyright 2009 Daniel Friedman, All Rights Reserved. Information Accuracy & Bias Pledge is at below-left. Use links at the left of each page to navigate this document or to view other topics at this website. Green links show where you are in our document or website.

Field Reports of FPE Incidents and FPE Stab-lok Failure Photographs

Glowing electric panel interior, FPE breaker failed to trip

FPE Overheat Field Report: FPE breaker fails to trip, meltdown

Federal Pacific panel bad neutral bar connection. I went out on a service call because the cable guy said there was power on the grounding system at his junction point to the house. I heard a sizzling noise when I pulled off the panel cover and traced it to the grounding locknut arcing. The neutral was shot so the current was using every path possible and the grounding locknut was not connected real well. I got a couple great digital shots - yes the orange glow on the middle picture is arcing! -- J.S. to DJF by email 8/28/2005

Photographs of source of overheating, glowing electric panel, and FPE equipment that failed to trip

Photograph of Bad neutral connection, FPE breaker failed to tripBad neutral connection, 1 - panel overview
> Photograph of Bad neutral connection, FPE breaker failed to tripBad neutral connection, 2 - glowing electrical panel!
Photograph of Bad neutral connection, FPE breaker failed to tripBad neutral connection, 3 - bad neutral wire

FPE Fire Field Report: FPE breaker results in Ohio fire, December 1999

Last week I was working on an electric furnace which is in a mobile home. This home has a 200 amp FPE entrance panel in it, with a 100 amp breaker for the furnace. As it turned out, the breaker was weak and would not hold. The customer called around and to my surprise was able to find a 100 amp FPE breaker at a home improvement/lumber yard in the next town. They went and bought it and I installed it.

All 4 banks of heaters were at 21 amps while running and the blower was at 6 amps for a total amp draw of 90 amps. This morning they called in and said the fire dept. just left. I went over and found that something had caused a short on the terminal block for the electric entering the furnace and the new breaker in the panel never tripped. Thankfully he was up and heard the noise and was able to turn off the main breaker and extinguish the fire before any structural damage occurred or worse.

The main electrical panel is a FPE panel with FPE breakers. This is in a mobile home that has an electric furnace in it. Now, the short occurred before the two breakers in the furnace (service shut-off breakers that are another brand) but should have been protected by the 100amp FPE breaker which was feeding the electric to the furnace.

The service shut-off breakers, at least the one, seems to have functioning properly. The short inside the furnace actually melted a hole in the bottom of the box and a piece of a screw fell across a connection below and tripped the one breaker. However, the FPE 100amp breaker in the panel NEVER tripped. -- T to DJF by email 12/28/99

FPE Overheat, Photos, Landlord Action Letter Jan 2006 Field Report

Photograph The following text is from a tenant's letter to his landlord, documenting the FPE Stab-Lok hazard with text and photos of the actual panel in the subject apartment. This letter, which documents the general FPE Stab-lok hazard and also specific evidence found in the apartment panel, was successful in convincing the property owner of the need for prompt action. G.G. Seattle, WA, to D.F. 1/24/2006 [Edits by DJF to shorten text, preserve anonymity, and to generalize the "FPE Stab-Lok Electric Panel/Circuit Breaker landlord action notice letter".]

[Moving into my new apartment] I spotted a 30-amp breaker in the electrical panel marked as bedroom lights. Lighting circuits and outlets generally are 20-amp and wired with 12-gauge wiring. It was over-fused which is a fire hazard. I googled Federal Pacific Electric (FPE) the maker of the panel to find if a [replacement circuit] breaker was available. [Seeinspect-ny.com/fpe/fpepanel.htm.] I also noticed that the panel was missing three breaker punchouts leaving holes in the panel in which fingers could easily fit. I removed the panel cover and discovered a meltdown of a circuit breaker had previously occurred.

Federal Pacific Electric panels and circuit breakers have a very high failure rate. Their breakers can stick in the on position and not disconnect the circuit. This has probably happened in my electrical panel once before, explaining the 30-amp replacement breaker and the fact that it was relocated within the panel. Also the 240-volt breakers which are ganged together have no main disconnect breaker. FPE's ganged breakers can fail on one side but the other side can prevent breaker disconnect.

A 240-volt [main circuit] breaker [which fails to trip will allow] all of the amperage from the power pole, 1,000-amps or more, into the panel. There is nothing (no disconnect) between the panel and the pole to stop this and there is no way for a person to shut off anything manually. It will burn until it runs out of fuel and, or the wires from the pole melt and finally disconnect. This is like having 200 toasters going in the panel at once.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission found the circuit breakers defective and failed to pass their tests and have a high failure rate. FPE passed UL certification originally but later was found guilty of fraud in Superior Court in New Jersey in a class action lawsuit for rigging the certification tests. The parent company Reliance Electric stopped manufacturing the product after they purchased Federal Pacific. Reliance stated "FPE's success was due substantially if not entirely to a pattern of materially deceptive and improper practices in the manufacturing testing and sale" of its circuit breakers. I found none of the other electrical manufacturers having these problems with their panels or circuit breakers.

We need to address this electrical panel issue in immediate future. The problem is that if the circuit breakers aren't required to trip everything appears fine. If they need to trip to protect the house it may very well not do the job. It is not possible to tell from looking at the equipment that it is working properly. It is possible your house insurance may not want to pay for a fire or death related to a known electrical problem.

  • The FPE Stab-Lok electrical panel needs to be [completely] replaced. Replacement panels aren't expensive.
  • Replacing the breakers won't solve this problem
  • The electrical panels elsewhere in the building also need to be replaced downstairs if they are the same type of FPE equipment
  • We need to act immediately before we have a major problem

I'm guessing that whoever inspected the property before your purchase failed to notice the problem. The seller or person doing the engineering inspection maybe liable for failing to disclose this defect to you before you purchased the property. The previous owner was inside the panel to move, remove and replace the breaker to get the bedroom lights going again after the breaker was destroyed [so certainly this condition was known to the seller and should have been obvious to the home inspector].

I have included more information about this problem. This problem won't go away unless we act on it.

My background is networking, wiring, technical writing, and I'm a radio amateur, I've replaced the electrical panel in my home and know the NEC code fairly well. I'm not an electrician but I can spot problems readily. Thanks for your consideration of this summary.

Photo #1 shows the panel in place. Photo#2, with the cover removed, shows the panel is packed with wires which is unsafe (overcrowding).

Photo#3: a previous burned out stab-lok connector visible when the panel cover is removed. This would only happen if the breaker didn't make a good connection to the stab lok connection or the breaker didn't trip. Also notice that the breaker in slot #20 (lower right) is a 30 amp circuit breaker and the wire coming from it is 12 gauge. This is overfusing of the wiring a potential fire hazard.

Photo #4 is blown up a bit to show the bus melting [arcing and overheating] from a previous breaker failure.

Photo #5: three breaker punchouts missing from the panel. I'm guessing that the circuit that was in slot #16 which arced out was moved to slot #20. I can't imagine why the punch out for breaker 14/15 was missing as well.

As a summary, the box already tried to melt down once and it was over fused as well. In addition the testing for UL Labs certification was obtained fraudulently [FPE] were convicted in NJ by the Superior Court and even Reliance Electric, Federal Pacific Electric's (FPE) parent company admitted that FPE had rigged the testing to get UL certification.

I understand the over-current problem and am running on as low a wattage as I can. So as long as I don't need over-current protection I'll be fine. Of course if I never required over-current protection I wouldn't need circuit breakers in the first place.

[[Editors's note: the following is a direct quote which may be offensive to some people. It is included here in demonstration of not only the severity of the consumer hazard but the depth of consumer frustration with government and legal authorities in this matter--DJF]
Hey why don't you send the FPE lawyer over to my place and I can mash his face right into the electrical panel while it's arcing. I guess all you get out of liars is more lies. These attorneys are just making it really bad for all of us. Japan has 5 times more engineers than the US does. The US has 7 times more lawyers than Japan does however and this may explain quite a bit.

Federal No-Trip1: FPE equipment that failed to trip

Photographs of source of short circuit also depicted.

Federal No-Trip2: FPE equipment that failed to trip

Contributed by Mark Cramer, ASHI inspector, educator, Tampa, FL.

Federal No-Trip3: FPE equipment case blowout, wire burn up

Contributed by Roger Hankey, ASHI inspector, educator, Minnesota. " The load on this circuit was a medium sized refrigerator./freezer and a counter top (est 1000w) microwave. As you can see the breaker was still ON. Hankey and Brown home inspectors, Eden Prairie, MN, technical contribution by Roger Hankey, prior chairman, Standards Committee, American Society of Home Inspectors - ASHI. 952 829-0044 - hankeyandbrown.com 11/06, 07/07.

[Follow up from J.A. - Looks more like a termination overheating problem than a circuit breaker problem. Looks like copper wire (green corrosion products). The wire leading away from the terminal does not show any signs of overheating - it is localized at the terminal. Also, the refrigerator & a microwave would not likely trip the breaker or overload the wiring. -- Aronstein]

Federal No-Trip4: FPE F-bus arc-melt 10/2005

Contributed by Douglas Hansen, ASHI inspector, educator, California.

...

Technical Reviewers & References

  • Daniel Friedman - principal author/editor of the InspectAPedia® Website
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  • Additional technical contributors & reference sources for this article are listed below.

Use links just below or at the left of each page to navigate this document or to view other topics at this website. Green links show where you are in our document or website.

FPE Stab-Lok HAZARDS & REPAIRS WEBSITE
SUMMARY OF the FPE Stab-Lok PROBLEM
FPE HAZARD ARTICLES, STUDIES
FPE Stab-Lok TECHNICAL REPORT
HOW TO IDENTIFY FPE & FP
REPORTS OF FPE FAILURES
  FPE FIRE & FAILURE PHOTOS
  FPE FAILURE FIELD REPORTS
HOW TO REPORT FPE INCIDENTS
FPE REPAIR ELECTRICIANS
FPE REPLACEMENT BREAKERS
FPE REPLACEMENT PANELS
FPE REPLACEMENT PANEL COSTS
CANADIAN VERSIONS of FPE Stab-Lok
FPE Stab-lok: FIRES WAITING TO HAPPEN
ADVICE TO HOME BUYERS w/ FPE PANELS
HOME INSPECTION LANGUAGE for FPE Stab-Lok
IAEI LETTER

  • Note: as we didn't add this reviewers list until 2007, this list of technical reviewers is incomplete; we have received comments and suggestions regarding this topic, edits and remarks included, from engineers and management from the US CPSC, electricians (many listed at our page on field reports of FPE failures), home inspectors, licensed electricians, and electrical engineers, and even a few attorneys and real estate agents, since 1986. Technical review, critique, content suggestions, questions, or clarifications are invited and where a contributor wishes, credit and links will be provided to that source. Contact us to provide feedback.
  • Dr. Jess Aronstein, electrical engineer, Poughkeepsie, NY, forensic engineering services, independent laboratory testing for various agencies
  • Alan Carson, Carson Dunlop, Associates, Toronto, Ontario. Mr. Carson is a home inspection professional, educator, researcher, writer, and a principal of Carson Dunlop Associates, a Toronto home inspection and education firm. Mr. Carson is a past president of ASHI, the American Society of Home Inspectors
  • Mark Cramer Inspection Services Mark Cramer, Tampa Florida, Mr. Cramer is a past president of ASHI, the American Society of Home Inspectors and is a Florida home inspector and home inspection educator. (727) 595-4211 mark@BestTampaInspector.com 11/06
  • Carl Grasso, Esq., Herzfeld & Rubin, New York, NY. Mr. Grasso is an attorney who managed a plaintiff's class action litigation against Federal Pacific Electric in New Jersey.
  • William King, US CPSC Director of Electrical Engineering (Ret).
  • Licensed Electricians: FPE Fire and Failure Reports includes electricians who have provided cases and photographs of field failures of FPE equipment at this website.
  • Homeowners, Home Inspectors, Electricians: Federal Pacific Electric (FPE) Panel Fires and other Failures includes anecdotal field reports provided by a range of contributors including electricians (and some home owners or home inspectors) who have provided cases and photographs of field failures of FPE equipment at this website.
FPE Stab-Lok HAZARDS & REPAIRS WEBSITE

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