http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/nation/stories/DN-breaker_21met.ART0.State.Edition2.3575506.html
Experts say electrical panels may be
a fire waiting to happen
12:00 AM CDT on Saturday, August 21, 2010
By CHRISTINA ROSALES / The Dallas Morning News
crosales@dallasnews.com
Karen and Floyd Clardy remember hearing a giant pop from the garage.
The lights in their Lake Highlands home went out, and suddenly there
were flames.
LOUIS DeLUCA/DMN
A contractor working on a remodeling project at Todd Holmes' house
suggested that he replace his Federal Pacific Stab-Lok electrical
panel. Holmes, father of Sydney (left) and Katie, agreed. 'It's going
to be $2,000 or so, but we're getting it changed to be on the safe
side,' he says.
They watched as fire spread from the garage to the attic and two rooms
in the house, causing $160,000 worth of structural damage.
"The breaker box was shooting flames, and there were sparks,"
Karen Clardy said.
ELIZABETH M. CLAFFEY/Special Contributor
Denton engineer Mark Goodson, whose firm investigates for insurance
companies, including the Clardys' insurer, says he's seen fires caused
by Federal Pacific breakers.
Dallas Fire-Rescue determined that the fire in March started in the
electrical panel in the garage. The Clardys' home was equipped with
a Federal Pacific Stab-Lok, a type of circuit breaker in thousands
of North Texas homes that is now widely thought by engineers, electricians
and house inspectors to be defective – and dangerous.
Experts first began saying in 1980 that a high percentage of the circuit
breakers failed to trip.
After testing the devices for about two years, the Consumer Product
Safety Commission said the government lacked sufficient data to warrant
a recall. No warning was ever issued.
But in recent years, engineers studying them independently have found
that the circuit breakers can overload and cause fires. Many have
been replaced in the decades since they were manufactured, but one
expert estimates they are still used in 20 million homes nationwide.
"They're everywhere," said Bob Charvoz, chief home inspector
for the American Association of Professional Inspectors in Plano.
"If your house was built during the '60s, '70s or '80s, it probably
has one of these breakers. About 90 percent of houses we see from
that time have them."
New York engineer Jesse Aronstein said he has been writing to the
Consumer Product Safety Commission for six years, urging that a clear
warning be issued.
Aronstein met with the commission most recently in February, saying
that fires could be prevented if the commission would update its 1983
statement. The commission now says it is working on a way to make
its stance clearer, spokesman Scott Wolfson said.
"If homeowners have been experiencing these incidents, we want
them to report them to our agency," Wolfson said. But he added,
"We need to recognize that there was no final conclusion."
Federal Pacific is no longer in business.
Used by Fox & Jacobs
Although the suspect breakers were used in homes constructed by many
builders, Fox & Jacobs installed them exclusively in the Southwest
up until the mid- to late 1960s, according to a spokeswoman from Pulte
Homes, which now owns the company. Fox & Jacobs homes accounted
for about 80 percent of homes built in the Dallas-Fort Worth area
during most of the 1970s.
No one can say how many house fires can be traced back to faults the
experts see in the boxes, although fire departments and insurance
inspectors say they regularly see fires start there, or start elsewhere
in a home because a circuit breaker fails to do its job.
Several engineering experts who have tested the boxes under laboratory
conditions have found them to be defective. Potential problems with
the Federal Pacific circuit breakers are such that many Texas home
inspectors regularly advise home buyers to remove them before a purchase.
But not always. The Clardys' house, built in 1978, had two previous
owners. After the fire, they were surprised to learn the history of
the type of circuit breaker that was in their house.
"We had no idea we had a problem" Floyd Clardy said. "No
one ever said, 'Replace the breaker box. This is dangerous.' "
"If they had, we would have done it in a flash," his wife
said.
Many found in closets
The suspect Stab-Lok circuit breakers were manufactured beginning
in 1960 and used through the 1980s by Federal Pacific Electric. Most
– but not all – were installed in closets.
The standards set for breakers can be compared to those for automobile
brakes.
Brakes should be able to stop a car within a set distance; circuit
breakers should interrupt the electrical current when circuits become
overloaded and overheated. This can prevent hazards such as overheating
and shocks and at worst a fire.
Aronstein said his two decades of testing showed that more than 25
percent of Federal Pacific circuit breakers are defective in lab settings.
The rate could be higher in non-lab settings, engineers say.
Denton engineer Mark Goodson's consulting firm investigates fires
for insurance companies, including the company that insured the Clardys.
"I think they're dangerous," Goodson said. "They don't
timely trip. I've seen fires caused by these breakers. I've seen wires
overheat where a Federal Pacific breaker did not trip. If left unchecked
the wires can combust and spread to cardboard, paper, clothing."
For more than 100 years, standards for circuit breakers has been unofficially
set by Underwriters Laboratories, a nonprofit groups that tests appliances
and sets standards used by the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission.
UL electrical engineer John Drengenberg said companies can sell products
that don't have the UL mark, but building inspectors will not pass
a new home if something like a circuit breaker doesn't bear the seal.
The Federal Pacific circuit breakers carried the UL seal, but there
have long been questions about whether some or all were properly certified.
A Federal Pacific engineer who resigned in 1978 later wrote the company
president with his claim that internal testing found certain breakers
defective.
"We found that they would only perform for approximately 1,200
operations of 3,000 required by Underwriters," he wrote, according
to documents that were part of several lawsuits related to the faulty
breakers. "At this point, the contacts would become badly burned
and excessive temperatures would occur."
The engineer, J.F. Meacham, cited several other cases where circuit
breakers were "cheated" through the Underwriters Laboratories
approval process, and he alleged that UL inspectors were paid to "turn
their heads," the document says.
The engineer wrote that the cheating would hurt the company, but no
mention was made of possible safety consequences.
"I think you know me well enough to know that I could not turn
my back or take part in what I have described in this letter, so I
left," he wrote.
Drengenberg said UL couldn't comment on the 32-year-old allegations
because records do not extend that far back.
Call for notification
If an inspector has heard of the potential hazards of a Federal Pacific
circuit breaker, it's through experience, Charvoz said, not through
the federal government.
"There's a good chance that things will fail later," even
if they've worked properly for decades, said Charvoz. "There
are electricians out there who say, 'Don't change them, it's OK.'
That's something that needs to be changed."
Dallas electricians and home inspectors almost always flag Federal
Pacific breakers during inspections because they might be dangerous,
home inspector Rudy Ringel said.
Whether people decide to replace the breakers is an issue for the
home buyer and seller to determine; it's not mandatory.
Todd Holmes, a father of two, was remodeling his bathroom when the
contractor redoing his electrical system suggested he replace his
Federal Pacific electrical box, including the breaker.
"It's going to be $2,000 or so, but we're
getting it changed to be on the safe side," Holmes said. "It's
the smartest thing to do."
