The breakers inside the panel are designed to guard your home against serious electrical problems by preventing circuit overload short circuits and outside power surges coming into the panel.
Federal pacific electric fpe panels.
If your home was built between 1950 and 1990 and is equipped with a federal pacific electric fpe circuit breaker panel with stab lok circuit breakers you run a significant risk of breaker malfunction and fire.
A circuit gets overloaded this often happens when plugging in too many high powered devices and appliances into a low.
Federal pacific panels also known as fpe panels were a popular residential electrical panel choice in the mid to late 20th century.
A federal pacific electrical panel as well as other brands and derivatives of fpe breakers are supposed to function as follows.
Millions of their panels were installed in homes across the country.
Federal pacific electric panels federal pacific electric company fpe was one of the most common manufacturers of circuit breaker panels in north america from the 1950s to the 1980s.
The panel was well known in the building community as a cheaper alternative to some of the more recognizable panel companies such as general electric i t e and square d.
They are typically clearly labeled with the words federal pacific electric or fpe also when you open the door you will often see the words stab lok in the center or on the side of the breaker panel.
Federal pacific stab lok breaker panels are normally easy to recognize.