Licensed Electrical Services for Northern Virginia Homes

Do You Know What Brand Your Panel Is?

Northern Virginia has a lot of housing built between the 1950s and the 1980s, and some of it still runs on a panel brand with a long running safety question attached. It takes about a minute to find out whether yours is one of them.

What the record actually says. The Consumer Product Safety Commission opened a two year investigation into Federal Pacific Electric Stab-Lok residential breakers in June 1980, after the parent company reported that many of them did not fully comply with Underwriters Laboratories requirements. The Commission's own testing confirmed the breakers fail certain UL calibration tests. It closed the investigation in 1983 because the data available at the time did not establish a serious risk of injury, and a 2011 revision of that release states plainly that the matter was closed without making a determination as to the safety of the breakers. No recall was ever issued, so replacing one is the homeowner's cost.

So what should you do? Do not panic and do not pull the cover off. If you find one of these panels, have it assessed by a licensed electrician, who can tell you whether it is worth replacing breakers or the whole panel. If your panel is a different brand, you have just ruled something out for free, which is the point. Our panel repair and upgrade and electrical inspection pages cover what happens next.

Source: U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, "Commission Closes Investigation Of FPE Circuit Breakers And Provides Safety Information For Consumers", originally issued 3 March 1983, revised 18 February 2011. Read the release.