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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 InspectAPedia.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. Readers who need to know the history of US CPSC testing and to read the government research that also confirmed failures of FPE Stab-Lok equipment (though no product recall was issued) should see "FPE Stab-Lok Panel Failure Research, Public documents" at our references given at the end of this article.

© Copyright 2010 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.

Recent Photo-Documented Field Reports of FPE Incidents and FPE Stab-lok Failure Photographs

• FPE Overheat Field Report: FPE breaker fails to trip, meltdown (photo at left)
• FPE Fire Field Report: FPE breaker results in Ohio fire, December 1999
• FPE Overheat, Photos, Landlord Action Letter Jan 2006 Field Report
• Federal No-Trip: FPE equipment that failed to trip
• Federal No-Trip2: FPE equipment that failed to trip
• Federal No-Trip3: FPE equipment case blowout, wire burn up
• Federal No-Trip4: FPE F-bus arc-melt 10/2005


• Federal No-Trips: Large Collection of Anecdotal FPE Field Failure Reports (separate document) Email from Electricians, Home Inspectors, Building Owners, Others - U.S. and Canada
• Electrical fire causes burn injuries to building occupant, Federal Pacific Electric Panel No-Trip suspected 09/16/2009


• Field reports wanted: Readers who have FPE field failure cases (or other electrical product failures) to report (failure to trip, overheating, fires, falls out of panel, panel bus meltdowns, case side explosions, etc.) or cases of proper FPE panel and breaker operation to report, and other professionals or inspectors who can contribute text descriptions, photographs or actual failed equipment are invited to contact the author.

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

Bad neutral connection, 1 - panel overview

Bad neutral connection, 2 - glowing electrical panel!

Bad 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

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. [SeeInspectAPedia.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.

Photographs of source of short circuit also depicted.

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

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]

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

Federal Pacific Electric Stab-Lok - Electrically Caused Fire, Occupant Suffers Burns - 2009

Contributed by a professional, indentification anonymous (litigation):

Our Client suffered burn injuries as a result of an electrically caused fire. There was a Federal Pacific electrical sub panel installed in the wall of her apartment. The city of Fremont Electrical Inspector confirmed that there was arcing taking place in the sub-pane land that the arcing was connected to the breaker that tripped (although he did not confirm definitively that the tripped circuit breaker fed the outlet from which the electric blanket was receiving power.) He indicated it was possible that the circuit lead to the electrical blanket caused an overload and this would also cause excessive heat which could have ignited the bed cover material before tripping the breaker. Attached is a photograph of the panel. We have retained an electrical expert who has furnished a report. If you would want other information or photos for your research on FPE failures please let us know. [We have requested copies of the report and sharper photos -- DF.]

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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
FPE HISTORY
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).
• Allan Tabor - 09/16/2009 contribution of FPE field report of electrical fire and burned building occupant
• 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 Panel Failure Research, Public documents on FPE obtained under FOIA: The following reports on defects (non trip and burning) of FPE Stab-Lock Circuit Breakers 8 were obtained from Consumer Product Safety Commission by request, under the Freedom of Information Act:
  • "Status Report - Evaluation of Residential Molded Case Circuit Breakers", Wright-Malta Corp., (For U.S. Consumer product Safety Commission, Project# CPSC-C-81-1455), August 10, 1982 (Contains analysis of mechanism of failure of FPE two-pole Stab-Lock breakers.)
  • "Failure Analysis of Residential Circuit Breaker Panel", Wright-Malta Corp., (For U.S. Consumer product Safety Commission, Project #CPSC-C-81-1455), May 20, 1982 (Contains failure analysis of FPE Stab-Lock panel that ignited due to failure of buss-bar interconnections in the backside of the panel.)
  • "Phase II Report, Evaluation of Residential Molded Case Circuit Breakers", Wright-Malta Corp., (For U.S. Consumer product Safety Commission, Project# CPSC-C-81-1455), March 10, 1984 (Contains experimental analysis of materials, construction, and performance of molded case circuit breakers, including FPE. Lack of corrosion resistance of certain internal parts is considered to be a factor in the failure of the circuit breakers.)
  • "Final Report: Calibration and Condition Tests of Molded Case Circuit Breakers," Wright-Malta Corp., (For U.S. Consumer product Safety Commission, Project #CPSC-C-81-1429), December 30, 1982 (Extensive calibration and functional testing of FPE breakers. Substantial percent failures to trip on overload.

Books & Articles on Building & Environmental Inspection, Testing, Diagnosis, & Repair

• Our recommended books about building design, inspection, and repair, and about indoor environment testing, diagnosis, and cleanup are at the InspectAPedia Bookstore.
• 1995 Federal Pacific Electric Panels: Fires Waiting to Happen, Debate Waiting to Be Ended - original text article from which this summary was extracted.
• Federal Pacific Electric FPE Panel/Breaker Hazard Summary - main FPE Hazard Website
• Home Inspection Reporting Language for FPE Stab-Lok electric panels and circuit breakers
• CPSC Calibration and Condition Tests of Molded Case Circuit Breakers, Final Report December 30, 1982, summary pages, indicating failure rates found for FPE Stab-Lok circuit breakers
• 1999 Home Inspection Reporting Language and discussion for FPE panels
• 1997 Schneider Canada Federal Pioneer circuit breaker recall
• 1983 CPSC Investigation of FPE Circuit Breakers Safety Information for Consumers
• 1982 Reliance Electric Co. SEC Quarterly Report: Note C. reports litigation between Reliance and UV Liquidating Trust and contends that "... improper and deceptive practices were employed for many years to secure UL listings for Federal Pacific's circuit protective products..."
• 1980 Reliance Electric Co. Press Release: improper practices improper practices used to obtain UL Listing for most of FPE's circuit breakers and notes testing which indicates "possible defects." 1980, Reliance Electric Co.
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