Grizz
02-15-2008, 09:19 PM
Note to admin: if you feel this should be moved to another topic area, that's ok with me. I posted here because it seems to be one of the most active places on the site.
We bought our house new in the early 70's here in beautiful Georgia. Last Saturday, I plopped down and watched some of TLC's My First House (one of 'her' shows). Anyway, the home inspector was going through the house that the subject of the show wanted to buy. When he opened the circuit breaker panel, he freaked, calling it a fire waiting to happen. Turns out that it was a Federal Pacific panel, the same as I had (always wondered why it was so hard to find a replacement breaker some years back). Had the whole thing replaced on Wednesday by a co-worker who's also a licensed electrician. When he was done (took about 5 hours), we looked at the old panel - found two of the small, snap in breakers welded to the panel and a couple of scorched wires and scorch marks under some of the other breakers.
Please take a minute and look at your electrical panel, especially if your house was built before 1995. Open the door where the circuit list is and the manufacturer's name should be on it. Tell friends and relatives, too - takes only a minute to check. Estimates are that there are, or were, about 1,000,000 defective breakers out there. If you do find you have one of these potential problems, I advise getting rid of it ASAP. My cost was well under a grand (hope you have a friend in the business).
More:
http://www.inspect-ny.com/fpe/fpereport.htm
We bought our house new in the early 70's here in beautiful Georgia. Last Saturday, I plopped down and watched some of TLC's My First House (one of 'her' shows). Anyway, the home inspector was going through the house that the subject of the show wanted to buy. When he opened the circuit breaker panel, he freaked, calling it a fire waiting to happen. Turns out that it was a Federal Pacific panel, the same as I had (always wondered why it was so hard to find a replacement breaker some years back). Had the whole thing replaced on Wednesday by a co-worker who's also a licensed electrician. When he was done (took about 5 hours), we looked at the old panel - found two of the small, snap in breakers welded to the panel and a couple of scorched wires and scorch marks under some of the other breakers.
Please take a minute and look at your electrical panel, especially if your house was built before 1995. Open the door where the circuit list is and the manufacturer's name should be on it. Tell friends and relatives, too - takes only a minute to check. Estimates are that there are, or were, about 1,000,000 defective breakers out there. If you do find you have one of these potential problems, I advise getting rid of it ASAP. My cost was well under a grand (hope you have a friend in the business).
More:
http://www.inspect-ny.com/fpe/fpereport.htm