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Pete C.

wrote:

Any electrical panel with breakers that old should be considered
suspect, irregardless of brand. If you could just replace the breakers
with new ones, you would be perfectly fine. However, that's not
economically viable in your case, so replacement is probably a good
idea.

Not at all. In addition to unreliable breakers, the FPE panels, at least
the "stab-loc" ones suffer from a truly atrocious and inadequate buss
attachment connection. Even if the breakers were prefect, the buss
itself is a threat.

Having said all of that, I have one fo these panels, and I have
replaced many of my 1962 breakers with newer ones made in the 80's and
I am perfectly fine with the panel. I have also tested all of my
breakers and they all work fine. The single pole breakers are as good
as any others their age. The two pole FPE breakers are the ones that
are notoriously bad. And unlike almost all the other FPE bashers, I
actually have an electrical Engineering degree and actually know what
I'm talking about.

See above comments. Perhaps you don't have a "stab-loc" version, but if
you do and think those bus connections are OK then your engineering
degree is either in an unrelated field or should be revoked.

Pete C.