Top Five Failed Building Practices: Part 4 of 5 Federal Pacific "Stab-Lok" Electrical Panels
Here is the fourth installment of the five-part series, The Top five Failed Building Practices. You can read Part 1: Aluminum Branch Wiring here, Part 2: Fire-Retardant Treated Plywood here, or Part 3: Polybutylene Pipes here.
Part 4: Federal Pacific "Stab-Lok" Electrical Panels
The fourth item on our list of the Top Five Failed Building Practices is Federal Pacific "Stab-Lok" Electrical Panels.
These electrical panels, originally manufactured by Reliance Electric Company, were widely used by builders in the 1960s and 1970s, but are now considered unsafe. The installation is now being described as a latent safety hazard - that is, the panels and circuit breakers themselves do not cause an unsafe condition such as a short in a wire, but the breakers may not trip when necessary. This can lead to overheating and fires.
In extensive testing by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), the circuit breakers had a failure rate of approximately 25 percent.
I frequently encounter Federal Pacific brand (FPE) electrical panels in homes I inspect, sometimes several in a week. They are easy to identify by the Federal Pacific and Stab-Lok branding on the panel cover.
If a household electrical circuit is overloaded, the circuit breaker in the panel is supposed to trip and cut off power so that heat cannot build up and cause scorched wires, melting and fires. I rarely see evidence of this, but the many documented cases of failure at the national level have led to an industry view that because these panels are obsolete and possibly dangerous, replacement should be considered. Replacement usually costs between $1,000 and $3,000.
To date, there is no recall or class action lawsuit for this panel but the Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued safety warnings. Universal Laboratories (UL) has also pulled their listing/endorsement of this product. The product is no longer manufactured.
Next up: Part 5: Asbestos Insulation.
Read Part 1: Aluminum Branch Wiring
Read Part 2: Fire-Retardant Treated Plywood
Read Part 3: Polybutylene Pipes
Comments
Oh dear, are they still
Oh dear, are they still selling this product? Why wasn't there a recall? This is extremely dangerous. My friend's son was killed in the electric shower years ago because of products like these.
Regards,
Matt
Flooring Raleigh
My husband owns his own
My husband owns his own business, and the place where he leases his office had an electrical fire 6 months ago. My husband and his business partner got called into the office in the middle of the night and were told to go into their office with flashlights to find all of the things that they needed to do business over the next several days. They are still re wiring the building to get it up to code. It is scary to think what could have happened had people been in the office.
It's unfortunate how many
It's unfortunate how many companies there are in the United States that still have unmanagable and deteriorating buildings. Due to budget cuts and/or pure neglect, aspects of buildings are gone unnoticed and therefore unimproved. I can remember an old elementary school that had the same old cabinet hardware from the 1920's. The problem with this was that it was caked in rust, dust and so on. It wasn't until very recently that they decided to change out all of the cabinets, doors and lighting fixtures.
The Addison Globe