Federal Pacific Stab-Lok

[growler]

The situation is this: Old house that was converted to a bed and breakfast. Old 400 amp service (overhead) that is metered by using CTs at the weather-head and then the service cable run straight in to the panels. It's not very far, probably 6-8 ft to get to the second panel (longest). Two panels side by side (200 amp ea.) and the are both Federal Pacific. The service cable doesn't look bad at all but it is unprotected SE cable that's entering a building ( existing installation for a number of years ).

When the owner went to sell the business the inspection report called for the two panels to be replaced. I think the buyers are going to want the panels replaced because the FPE panels have such a bad reputation.

Now for the problem: I talked with the local inspector for this jobs. It seems that I could do just a panel swap if the panels were bad and it was needed as a repair. But if they are just being changed as an upgrade to better quality this would call for a complete service upgrade and be quite a bit more expensive.

If it were only one panel and not two side by side being the honest man I am I would just say the panel is bad and needed to be changed out. Unfortunately it's kind of hard to say that two panels went bad at once (not really believable).

I have been thinking about this and was wondering if it's possible to say that a panel is bad just because it's an FPE and people are afraid they are a fire hazard (creating an emergency situation). It seems that's what the home inspector is doing. I wonder if I could get away with it.

Any thoughts?

 

[jaggedben]

Well, this is entirely a local enforcement issue and not a code question. And since you already talked to the local inspector, the question is whether your conversation left that possible interpretation on the table or whether the inspector already ruled it out. What I think is it doesn't really matter what any of us in the forum think.