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Dangers of Federal Pacific Circuit Breakers

If you have a Federal Pacific circuit breaker inside your home, you may be at risk! Although they’ve been produced and installed in homes for decades, this type of panel has caused damage in hundreds of homes.

electrician inspecting an electrical panel
Licensed master electrician working on an industrial breaker panel.

Although they were designed to keep you and your home safe, that hasn’t been the case. Here are some of the dangers:

  • Faulty circuit breakers that cause fires
  • Excessive heat that causes severe burns
  • Inability to trip due to excessive current

How can a defective breaker pass federal inspections? According to NBC Bay Area, “UL listings on circuit breakers made by Federal Pacific have previously been obtained through the use of deceptive and improper practices.” They were using hidden remote controls to force the breakers to trip if they were not tripping properly.

The probability is very high that the Electric Panel Box inside of your home is a builder’s grade aluminum based panel box. What that means to you is that the copper wiring that goes from the Panel Box through the home is connected to aluminum wiring inside your panel box. This is inherently an unsafe situation and can cause electrical arcing and fires. If you have one of these builder’s grade boxes in your home, you are harboring a safety hazard. It is essential that you have this panel box evaluated as soon as possible and, if found to be hazardous, have it changed for the more modern and much safer copper based panel box.

Don’t go another day risking a fire or other serious hazard. Contact the expert electricians at Lon Lockwood Electric today and we’ll replace your Federal Pacific panel to keep you and your family safe!