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Case Study
6/18/98
Subject: FPE breakers and panels
Date: Fri, 09 May 1997
Reply-To: redwood@codecheck.com
Organization: CodeCheck.com
Newsgroups: alt.home.repair
I'm trying to separate myth from facts about the notorious Federal
Pacific Electric stablok breakers and panels. If you have any first hand
experience with FPE failures please let me know. I am working on an
article that I will post at my site once I've gathered enough material.
Descriptions of spectacular arching sparking are eagerly awaited.
For the best background article I've found take a look at:
http://www1.mhv.net/~dfriedman/fpepanel.htm
Since the first days of my electrical career, I'd been hearing stories
about how FPE panels were "de-certified" by UL. (I have talked
to reps
at UL who say this never happened. "They just went out of business".
There are UL approved replacement breakers being manufactured today in
Canada and Mexico.)
Subject: Re: [Fwd: Re: FPE panels and breakers]
Date: Wed, 14 May 1997
From: Dan Friedman <dfriedman@inspect-ny.com>
Organization: American micro Publish
To: redwood@codecheck.com
You're right that the eqpmt was never officially "de-listed"
by UL -
fact is a political battle was lost and funding cut - if you talk with
the engineers at CPSC about it you'll get a more clear picture. The
data, as I got under FOIA and published at the FPE website, clearly
reports testing that demonstrated failures at an abysmal rate for the
breakers, even the single pole ones. Later I learned that there are two
other failure modes - the bus bars and the wires with excessive bending
due to limited space (as per Doug Hansen's message) -
This is, IMHO an important example topic as it serves as a test case
and
example of the issues that arise when reliable experts demonstrate a
serious safety concern but money and politics stop short of a recall or
an aggressive public warning. Then us field guys who believe there's a
problem run into folks who stonewall based on the "it's legal"
argument.
For ALL of these issues I've preferred to rely on exposure of the best
data I can find, in the most public way I can show it (thus this
internet stuff on AL wiring, the Ideal-65, and the FPE stuff) - with the
expectation that the end-consumer is usually quite capable of reading
and understanding and evaluating the data - and will usually stand firm
on the issues, on the side of safety.
All that we have to do is work to be as accurate and even-handed as
possible.
We don't have the short-cut of "code" citation as an easy out
in this
case.
--
Dan Friedman, American Home Service / American micro Publish
Construction Inspection & Consulting/Professional Writing, Editing,
Publishing
mailto:dfriedman@inspect-ny.com http://www.inspect-ny.com/
Subject: Re: [UL & FPE panels and breakers]
Date: Sun, 11 May 1997
From: Douglas Hansen <toltec@best.com>
To: redwood@codecheck.com
As to the myths about the UL listing, the little I know on the subject
is
that UL conducts tests on equipment sent into them and that UL can and will
make site visits to manufacturers to verify that products are meeting the
standard of those products submitted for testing. There are some problems
with forged UL stickers (on Asian imports mostly), but generally speaking
the listing mark means what it says, and all the FPE stuff out there was
listed at the time it was sold. However, UL in New York (not our local
Santa Clara Lab) did some investigation of the "exploding" FPE
breakers
back in the early 80's. The engineer at their New York facility told me
it
was an old story, and the products had been "withdrawn". Nothing
in this
leads me to believe that there was any kind of recall or product liability
suit. Many companies that once manufactured panelboards and breakers are
no
longer around, e.g. Zinsco, GE, et. al. Likewise much older equipment is
prone to failure simply due to age. Personally, I think FPE equipment has
other failure modes (the bus design and the wire bending
space) that make
it a particularly suspect brand of old equipment, but the main problem with
the breakers themselves is the "old" part.
Subject: FPE panels and breakers
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998
From: Harry Hughes <HHughes@towson.edu>
Organization:Towson University-Facilities
Management Department
To: misc@codecheck.com
From: Harry Hughes, Assistant Director of Operations and Maintenance, Towson University
In 1981 Federal Pacific sent a letter to this University regarding a voluntary recall of their molded case breakers types NEJ, HEJ, NFJ/HFJ, NEG/HEG, NEF and NP. Their New Jersey office sent technicians down to replace over 200 breakers on campus from 40 amps up to 1600 amp types.
Obviously the job took several weeks to perform and a number of man-hours involved, but it certainly sent the message to us that FPE was concerned about their product and indeed had reason to replace them. They did the job at no cost to the University at the time.
We have been increasingly concerned over the past 5 years regarding the FPE breakers as during maintenance shutdowns and testing we found a number of them unable to open and at least half did not pass the most basic of tests.
On June 13, 1998, we had a major failure in one of the 50 amp breakers causing a fire in our University Union building doing several thousand dollars worth of damage, fortunately no one was injured. Our failure occurred when the third leg of the switch failed to open and welded the contacts shut, the secondary breaker failed to open as well and the problem went straight to the primary.
Upon testing prior to restart of the system we found that over half of the 18 breakers and switches in the panel would not pass.
We are in the process of removing all of the Federal Pacific breakers
in our buildings as quickly as we can.
Case 1- The story went on that FPE breakers
commonly failed
to trip under short circuit conditions. Every electrician I know had a
similar impression, but none could give me first hand testimony to such
a failure. I inspect dozens of electrical jobs per week but it wasn't
until a few months ago that I got to see an FPE breaker do what it was
rumored to do, not work in a fault situation.
During a home inspection, by a home inspector associate of mine, a
garage FPE sub-panel began belching sparks and smoke. It was only by
disconnecting the feeder breaker at the service that it would stop.
A group of us electrical types were called in to witness this event.
We
were all of the same skeptical bent, having heard for years about the
infamous FPE's evils, but not having direct experience with said
failures.
Being the seasoned veterans that we were we cold tested the system,
ringing out the sub-panel, feeder conductors and breakers and could not
locate a fault. Still, the sub-panel had obviously been cooked, so we
proceeded with caution.
Once satisfied the fault no longer existed we closed the breaker to the
garage panel. NZZZZZZZZG!!!!(that's the sound of a dead short). The
fault was severe enough to send the service entrance conductors bouncing
violently(it was an old 3 wire drop, not a cable assembly).
There was a lot of head scratching. Upon further scrutiny, we noticed
a
deflection of the bus bars in the sub-panel. They were very very close
together and highly carbonized. Our consensus guess, on what was
happening, was that a multimeter's ohm meter just didn't have the umph
to jump the gap and indicate a fault condition. When 120 volts was
applied it did have the pressure to jump the gap and behave like a
bolted fault. The panel has been sent off to a lab for further testing,
results are pending.
The bottom line is that neither the feeder or main breaker opened. Of
course this is an anecdotal story and is highly unscientific. I did
come away from the experience much less skeptical of the FPE reputation.
I would no longer hesitate recommending replacement of FPE panels.
Case 2-
Subject: FPE Panels
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 1997
From: Douglas Hansen <toltec@best.com>
To: redwood@codecheck.com
Recently saw yet another failure mode in FPE panels. As you are probably
aware, one of the reasons the product was discontinued is the failure of
the FPE panel design to meet the wire bending space requirements of the
1981 NEC. I saw a 125 subpanel in an apartment laundry, packed full of
wires, and with a sharp bend in the neutral feeder before it connected to
the lug on the neutral bus. The wire had pulled out of the lug, and the
marks on the wire where it had once been under the lug were visible. This
was copper wire, not aluminum, and "cold flow" was not the issue
here. The
only reason for this failure was that the memory of the metal being bent
at
such a sharp angle left enough tension on the connection to pull it loose.
When I opened the panel, the neutral feed was just barely touching the
neutral bus. This was supplying the laundry and common areas of a 32 unit
apartment. Imagine the potential danger if this had completely lost contact
with the neutral bus. Douglas
Case 3-
Re: FPE panels and breakers
Date: Sat, 10 May 1997
Newsgroups: alt.home.repair
, alt.building.construction
, misc.consumers.house
Jim Mais wrote:
Back in the 60's I made some experiments in the lab to test the trip point of common FPE breakers. I was not able to find any that did not trip in spec. I read Friedman's article and realize that the situation he discusses is different. I never ran into the common trip problem he cites. I'm tempted to autopsy a 2 pole unit to see if the mechanical conditions are there for the problem he describes!
I do have one FPE tale to tell: A few years ago I was working on an old
split bus panel. A 2 pole breaker was open circuited. There being no main
in a split bus I began to pry out the offending breaker. To my horror I
saw, too late, that the breaker had burned out leaving nothing but charred
bakelite. The only thing holding it together was the two pigtails connected
to the stabs which were firmly anchored in the panel bus. That was a day
I was glad I had my safety glasses on! IT was like having a tiger by the
tail; I couldn't let go and I didn't dare pull it out. I finally had someone
pull the meter...
Speedy jim
