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Federal Pacific electrical panel??
I'm de-lurking to ask about something we found during our inspection (we're the buyers). The house was built in the 70's and has a Federal Pacific Stab-Lok electrical panel. My understanding is that these are widely known to be a fire hazard due to the breakers not always tripping when overloaded. Our inspector mentioned it in the report, but the report also says that the electrical systems are "functioning as intended." I'm in TX and apparently these panels are very common in the area.
Our realtor seems to think the sellers will not pay for replacement if we ask (they had 5 other offers but I don't know how high the other offers were).
Has anyone dealt with this? If you had it replaced, how much did you pay? Am I crazy to think that any other buyer will balk at this issue as well?
Thanks for your insight!!
Re: Federal Pacific electrical panel??
I think these panels put inspectors in a very akward position, because the hazard they pose is a latent one. They may very well "function as intended" during a visual inspection, yet the inspector knows that when a breaker is overloaded in the future, it may fail to trip. It doesn't help that the Consumer Product Safety Commission has never taken a firm stance on the issue. They acknowledge that the panels have a high failure rate, but they haven't been recalled.
If it were me, I would ask the sellers to replace the panel. The worst they can do is say no. Around here, the cost is around $1,200 for a new panel with 100 amps and around $1,500 for 200 amps.
I'd ask for it to be replaced. It's widely known to be a possible safty issue. For me, if I could get the sellers to cover half of the cost I'd be happy. When you buy an older home I me, there should always be the expectation that at least something will need to be updated.
But if I were a seller I'd contribute at least half, if not the total cost if I could afford it, toward fixing it because it is a saftey issue.
We had one in the house we bought and just had it replaced while we were remodeling the kitchen two years after buying. During the buying/ renovating we talked with 5 electricians and none were overly concerned about the panel all did suggest replacing it- although why wouldn't they?
I wouldn't be overly worried about a FTE pannel they are fairly common try to get it paid for, but that wouldn't be a deal breaker. A new pannel is about 1500 here, which is sadly just a drop in our homeownership bucket.