Federal Pacific

Fire Hazards

Federal Pacific Stab-Lok breaker panels are a fire hazard. The double-pole breakers fail to trip a high percentage of the time when overloaded or in a short circuit situation. The breakers also come loose on the buss bar. In these instances, the breakers fail to protect the wires, they can overheat, arc, and lead to a fire. From 1980 to 1983, The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) conducted laboratory tests on the double-pole FPE breakers and stated the double-pole breakers would fail 25% of the time under modest load. The failed breaker would then never trip again after that under any overload condition. Federal Pacific never refuted CPSC’s findings and acknowledged the problem with the double-pole breakers failing to trip. Back in the 1980′s, there were tests conducted by 4 companies and 1 Federal Agency: FPE, Southwest Research Inc., UL, CPSC, and Wright-Malta Corp. Only 2 of these studies were made public due to proprietary and liability issues. 25 years later, J.Aronstein, P.E. has continued independently testing. In J.Aronstein’s testing which was the largest sampling nearing 500 circuit breakers, the failure rate was as high as 60%.

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