fpe used breakers

[stew]

anyone know where i can sell a large batch of used fre breakers or is ther any market for them. ?

 

[mxslick]

You're kidding, right? :grin:

Do everyone a big favor, destroy them with a sledgehammer or run them over with your truck, then toss them in the trash.

Bear in mind if you sell those 'Failure-Prone Equipment" breakers and it fails to perform its job (a VERY high probability) the you can be held liable for any damage, fires, injuries or deaths that happen.

There is a very remote chance that a circuit breaker rebuilder MIGHT buy them, but chances are you won't get enough money to make it worthwhile.

 

[Dennis Alwon]

anyone know where i can sell a large batch of used fre breakers or is ther any market for them. ?

Go to ebay.... there are thousands of FPE breakers for sale.

 

[stew]

i highley doubt that i could be held resposible for someone elses failing piece of equipment. obviously they are failure prone but there are millions out therer that5 havent failed as well

 

[stjohnbarleycorn]

there are some breaker buyers if you look them up. not sure they want fpe. Find a trailer park and you may be able to sell them there.

 

[480sparky]

List 'em 'as is' on fleabay. You might get a couple bucks for 'em.

 

[LarryFine]

. . . there are millions out therer that5 havent failed as well

Unfortunately, when a breaker fails to open, you usually find that out the hard way.

 

[Jim W in Tampa]

i highley doubt that i could be held resposible for someone elses failing piece of equipment. obviously they are failure prone but there are millions out therer that5 havent failed as well

They might have failed but the wire just has not caught fire yet. Sadly someone will buy them that does service work. Your liability is limited unless you knowing sell defective ones.
Must ask where and why you got them. They were removed for a good reason that you should know.
Big question is if your doing service work and find a bad one just what are your real options ?
Replace with warning ?
Refuse to replace and sell panel changeout ?

 

[macmikeman]

Sell em for cash at the swap meet. Wear a fake mustache and those phony buck teeth also. Then change identity and move to another part of the country.....

 

[ptonsparky]

I have few on the shelf to. Actually installed at least one panel just before shit hit the fan. Thought back then it was a problem with the larger frame breakers.

 

[Jim W in Tampa]

Sell them 1 at a time to insurance companies to hang on there wall along with sign saying how many millions this wonderfull brand has cost them.

 

[stevenje]

I did a service upgrade last week and which included removing an old FPE panel. About half the breakers literally fell out of the panel when I took it off the wall. There were a couple of the breakers that had 40? C ratings marked on the front of them.

I call them "Federal No Blows" or FPE- "Fire Probably Eminent" for the many times I have seen them refuse to trip.

I worked for a shop that refused to work on any residential project that had any FPE breaker panels.

Do us all a favor. Put them in the trash not on a shelf.

 

[curt swartz]

I have several local breaker shops that will buy them.

I still have not seen any real evidence that these breakers are as bad as almost everyone says. I don't consider home inspection websites credible. Most of the failures that they attribute to the breaker such as loose connections in the circuit will not trip any breaker. The local breaker shop test all used breakers before sale and I have asked them many times over the years how often FPE Stab-Lok's fail. Of the thousands tested the answer is very few. They state the failure rate is equal if not less than all often brand breakers. I do realize that there was a short period of time that there were some questionable internal components used but that only effects a very small quantity of the breakers in service. Square D and Siemens have defective and recalled breakers still in service. FPE Stab-Lok's were never recalled.


Stevenje, the 40C is the ambient temperature rating. If you look at any current breakers it will have the same rating.

 

[stevenje]

I have several local breaker shops that will buy them.

I still have not seen any real evidence that these breakers are as bad as almost everyone says. I don't consider home inspection websites credible. Most of the failures that they attribute to the breaker such as loose connections in the circuit will not trip any breaker. The local breaker shop test all used breakers before sale and I have asked them many times over the years how often FPE Stab-Lok's fail. Of the thousands tested the answer is very few. They state the failure rate is equal if not less than all often brand breakers. I do realize that there was a short period of time that there were some questionable internal components used but that only effects a very small quantity of the breakers in service. Square D and Siemens have defective and recalled breakers still in service. FPE Stab-Lok's were never recalled.


Stevenje, the 40C is the ambient temperature rating. If you look at any current breakers it will have the same rating.

Curt,
Thanks for the info. I assumed that the 40C sticker on the front of the breaker was the terminal rating. I had never seen a sticker on the front of a FPE breaker before with the 40C writing. I will look more closely next time.

I have been in this business since 1974 and have had more problems with FPE breakers than any other brand I have had to install and service. I don't trust these breakers. In my opinion they are dangerous. More than once I have seen a direct short never clear until the wire burnt completely in two.

In one case a hot wire in a junction box welded itself to the box before it finally stopped shorting out once it burned up the connection in a wirenut. It never did trip the breaker.

The worst case that ever happened to me was when I was an apprentice. We were working on a old house remodel. My journeyman sent me into a tight crawl space to cut and move some wiring. We had to cut the old 2-wire range wire with the braided bare ground and move it to another location. He shut off the FPE 2-40 breaker marked for the range. It was mislabeled. He unknowingly shut off the wrong breaker. I cut into the range wire thinking it was off and shorted out the wire. All I saw was a huge flash and got showered with hot metal. I was only about 2 feet from the short with little room to move. I rolled out of the way and then realized my shirt was on fire. I beat out the flames with my hands. Meanwhile my side cutters were still hanging from the wire and continued to keep shorting out throwing out a shower of smoke and hot metal until they burn in half. The breaker never did trip. I still got scares from that one.

Lessons learned that day:
#1) NEVER trust anyone that anything is off. Test it yourself.
# 2) Start wearing safety glasses. I was real lucky I didn't loose an eye.
# 3) FPE breakers are dangerous. As I would find out in the future, this was not a one time thing.

 

[Jim W in Tampa]

I have several local breaker shops that will buy them.

I still have not seen any real evidence that these breakers are as bad as almost everyone says. I don't consider home inspection websites credible. Most of the failures that they attribute to the breaker such as loose connections in the circuit will not trip any breaker. The local breaker shop test all used breakers before sale and I have asked them many times over the years how often FPE Stab-Lok's fail. Of the thousands tested the answer is very few. They state the failure rate is equal if not less than all often brand breakers. I do realize that there was a short period of time that there were some questionable internal components used but that only effects a very small quantity of the breakers in service. Square D and Siemens have defective and recalled breakers still in service. FPE Stab-Lok's were never recalled.


Stevenje, the 40C is the ambient temperature rating. If you look at any current breakers it will have the same rating.

Problem is the defective ones are burned up in the fire.
I would suggest to any customer that has fpe to change out the panel 911. Smart insurance companies will not insure a building with them. Slum lords will not likely care who gets killed as long as they get rent.
If you care about people and kids then please bust then with hammer and trash them. We will all sleep beter knowing some more of them are gone.

 

[mxslick]

Sadly Jim some people are more into making a quick buck than caring about other's safety. The CPSC has had tests done on FPE breakers and they did have a statistically significant failure rate. Just because someone has seen FPE panels that haven't failed (yet) doesn't mean they are safe.

Remember too how they "fixed" the large frame breaker issue with a lousy warning label. THREAD HERE

I cannot answer as to why they were not recalled, but can surmise that in that era the resources to make such a sweeping recall weren't in place. Strictly a guess on my part.

Candidly, to put these breakers up for sale on eBay is not only irresponsible, but the time and effort to list them vs. the costs and what you'll get for them makes it a huge waste of time and money.

If someone feels the need to get any money out of them, then the ONLY responsible thing to do is sell them to a certified circuit breaker rebuilder and let them test and recondition them as necessary.

 

[rt66electric]

sell them all the time

sell them all the time

I sell them all of the time . I put as many as I can in a usps flat rate box, be sure to pack well with extra cardboard and spacers, then unpack take lots of close-up pictures and list them..
NOTE: Most buyers will not bid/buy anything from you untill you have ar least 100 sells and 100% feedback. List one or two boxes at time and put a $10 opening bid, sometimesthey sell for $10/box to $40/box most of my sales have 1 watcher and one bidder.

 

[Jim W in Tampa]

Sadly Jim some people are more into making a quick buck than caring about other's safety. The CPSC has had tests done on FPE breakers and they did have a statistically significant failure rate. Just because someone has seen FPE panels that haven't failed (yet) doesn't mean they are safe.

Remember too how they "fixed" the large frame breaker issue with a lousy warning label. THREAD HERE

I cannot answer as to why they were not recalled, but can surmise that in that era the resources to make such a sweeping recall weren't in place. Strictly a guess on my part.

Candidly, to put these breakers up for sale on eBay is not only irresponsible, but the time and effort to list them vs. the costs and what you'll get for them makes it a huge waste of time and money.

If someone feels the need to get any money out of them, then the ONLY responsible thing to do is sell them to a certified circuit breaker rebuilder and let them test and recondition them as necessary.

I like your idea, at least they get checked over.
As long as there are some available there will be someone willing to install them for a price.