Electrical Question

Originally Posted By: jpeck
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roconnor wrote:
Jerry ... no comment about the FPE panel ... ![icon_eek.gif](upload://yuxgmvDDEGIQPAyP9sRnK0D0CCY.gif)


What was I supposed to say about FPE which hasn't already been said?

That FPE breakers make good molded case switches?
(They were just tested and listed wrong, as breakers, by mistake.)


--
Jerry Peck
South Florida

Originally Posted By: Gino Conner
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Quote:
That FPE breakers make good molded case switches?


That's the best compliment I have ever heard paid to Federal Pacific! ![icon_lol.gif](upload://zEgbBCXRskkCTwEux7Bi20ZySza.gif)


Originally Posted By: roconnor
This post was automatically imported from our archived forum.



jpeck wrote:
... FPE breakers make good molded case switches? ![icon_biggrin.gif](upload://iKNGSw3qcRIEmXySa8gItY6Gczg.gif)
(They were just tested and listed wrong, as breakers, by mistake.)

Works for me ...


--
Robert O'Connor, PE
Eagle Engineering ?
Eagle Eye Inspections ?
NACHI Education Committee

I am absolutely amazed sometimes by how much thought goes into doing things wrong

Originally Posted By: jpeck
This post was automatically imported from our archived forum.



For some reason this (FPE breakers) came to mind during an inspection on a new house the other day, and I thought of something my Dad kept telling me back in the mid-60s when I worked for him at his electrical contracting business.


We were at a Hughes Supply and picking up some Square D panels and breakers and I was looking at some FPEs on the counter for someone else, he said he did not use those because they are junk, and that the only electricians who did use them were electricians who did not care about their work, that they were only trying to cut the prices for everyone else (you should have seen the look the electrician sitting at the counter buying those things gave him). Said they were always falling out and were a real pain to work with, and for all the extra labor it took to work with them, you might as buy the "good stuff" (and another dirty look from that other guy), that the "real cost" was the same anyway.

Some 20 years later, time proved him right.


--
Jerry Peck
South Florida

Originally Posted By: Harold Endean
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Just my 2 cents, but I don’t think too many ( or any for that matter) (The old styles) FPE breakers are rated HACR. So if you see an FPE breaker protecting and HVAC equipment, then there might be a code violation.


Originally Posted By: jpeck
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Harold,


Doesn't really matter, they are just molded case switches anyway ![icon_smile.gif](upload://b6iczyK1ETUUqRUc4PAkX83GF2O.gif) . Regardless of anything else (and there is always plenty of everything else), they need to be replaced.

Not being HACR rated is of little consequence.

Now, that may also be applied to the old Bulldog Pushamatics and the other old breakers, but FPE is in a class with Zinsco (or is it that Zinsco is in the class with FPE?). Both panels are in need of replacement when found. I do not think either has a redeeming factor.


--
Jerry Peck
South Florida