I'm soon going to call an electrician out to change out my FPE panel. The house was built in '76. I've looked online and found many posts about changing panels but with mine, the meter is on the panel and I couldn't find anything related to my setup. With this type of box, does it make the job any more involved? I'm hoping it doesn't add to the cost of the job. Asking in advance so that I know what I might be in for. Thanks!
Replace a FPE panel
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Not familiar with meter/panel combo, but bet this is going to be complicated. 1st off, according to NEC, you need 3' wide working space and 6.5' height with nothing below the equipment. This depends upon local requirements. Where does the incoming line enter the meter from?
You might consider replacing the breakers (only) with newly manufactured breakers which do not have the issues the old ones have as they are not made by the original manufacturer.
You might consider replacing the breakers (only) with newly manufactured breakers which do not have the issues the old ones have as they are not made by the original manufacturer.
Rough measurement of the panel is 31"x14". The space measures 55"x24".
This is on the side of my garage so I could cut out some drywall on the backside to gain more access on the rear.
If I could replace the cb's, I wouldn't object to that. I had read that it wasn't just the cb's that were the issue, but also the busbar. There was something I read about Eaton making a retrofit kit, but that it would be just as much $$ vs. replacing the entire panel (maybe not in my case since the meter is part of the situation).
This is on the side of my garage so I could cut out some drywall on the backside to gain more access on the rear.
If I could replace the cb's, I wouldn't object to that. I had read that it wasn't just the cb's that were the issue, but also the busbar. There was something I read about Eaton making a retrofit kit, but that it would be just as much $$ vs. replacing the entire panel (maybe not in my case since the meter is part of the situation).
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Who would they be made by, then? Would they be any better? While you're at that shop could you also get me a bunch of Pushmatic AFCIs, QO GFCIs that indicate with an LED, and CH duplex DFCIs? Coz I really need some magic breakers.
Seriously, it's gone the other way. The Chinese new-build Zinsco and FPE breakers are actually worse than the originals.... but the redoubtable company making them has also managed to screw up Pushmatic breakers, which weren't broken before.
By the way, involved in that fiasco is a name we are familiar with: Reliant, maker of overhyped second rate transfer switches.
Correct, unfortunately. The Stab Lok bus idea was bankrupt from the outset. Zinsco fared no better, those buses are unfixable.
For a counter-example of a company with bad breakers but good buses, where you can just replace the breakers, look at Challenger. They cheerfully take BR breakers, in fact BR breakers *are* type C, the name change was to keep people from putting dangerous type C breakers in BR panels.
Yeah, it's pricey. The bigger problem is the Eaton kit replaces the entire panel guts and the deadfront... and it is designed for "portrait" orientation not "landscape". It simply will not physically fit in your meter-main setup.
The people talking about working space are correct; that's an illegal location for a service panel. You don't have the width or height even if you moved the gas meter, and that can't be underfoot.
There is nothing physically wrong with FPE *meter pans*. So if meters don't require the same working space, you might be able to utterly abandon this box except for the meter, punch a 2" rigid conduit through that wall, and put a new main panel on the other side of it in the normal fashion. And just leave the remnants of that panel in place unused.
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I love the idea of putting the panel inside back to back of the meter.
Still wondering where the service enters the meter. I do not see an underground conduit coming up from below the meter.
It is also a good point that, if you need to, you will not find replacement AFCI breakers for the FPE panel.
Still wondering where the service enters the meter. I do not see an underground conduit coming up from below the meter.
It is also a good point that, if you need to, you will not find replacement AFCI breakers for the FPE panel.
Or any other FPE breaker. The situation is a nightmare. Here's ThreePhaseEel's summary on Stackexchange, but look at one of his refs too... wow, just wow. How could they screw that up so bad.
Eaton makes Classified breakers for everyone else. I really wish they'd stick BRD guts inside an FPE body so at least there would be viable breakers... but as the paper says, that wouldn't fix the stab problem.
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