Panel Replacement

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Marty Funkhauser

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The other side of aluminum
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electrical apprentice
Hello all. We sometimes do work at a 55 and over community in NJ. Homeowners started calling us to tell us about a letter they received from their home owners assoc.
The letter says the assoc. is giving residents 6 months to change their electrical panel if it is original with the home, because of a recent fire. Here's what I know. The community was built 1970-1975. The people that called our company have GE brand panels 150 and 200 amp. These homes have electric baseboard heat and appliances. Services are underground fed. Some of the homes are stand alone. Some are double and triple units connected together by roof but have fire walls in between. I'm aware of FPE problems and I've seen melted breakers in Challenger. But GE? The whole thing seems kind of off? What do you think??
 
Seems odd to me too. It could be a loose connection on breaker to a baseboard heater?
Is there aluminum wire on the branch circuits?
Was there ever any electrical work done after 1975, perhaps recently, that someone could check with the electrician to see if they noted any problems
Can you post the investigation report, if done by the FD it should be a public document.
And can you check other similar units to see if there are an signs of overheating?
 
Seems odd to me too. It could be a loose connection on breaker to a baseboard heater?
Is there aluminum wire on the branch circuits?
Was there ever any electrical work done after 1975, perhaps recently, that someone could check with the electrician to see if they noted any problems
Can you post the investigation report, if done by the FD it should be a public document.
And can you check other similar units to see if there are an signs of overheating?


Copper wiring. We don,t physically have the letter but supposedly is being brought out from the insurance co.
 
If I were an owner, I'd seriously consider a legal battle. Perhaps insist that passing an inspection should suffice.

Can they prove that the brand of equipment alone was the cause of the fire? Or any specific cause?
 
Once you have people terrified, it's almost impossible to unscare them.

I would suggest to the residents that they band together and challenge the homeowners association.

I find it hard to believe that mandate would hold up in court if they couldn't prove definitively that the panel alone was the culprit, and that all the other panels are in similar condition to cause similar problems
 
If I was a homeowner I’d check the deed terms. There are covenants and bylaws. A covenant is set up by the developer and is tied to the deed. It is law. Bylaws are just rules for the HOA itself. For instance set up meetings every other Saturday or that you have 60 days to fill out an application to run for office. What happens is a bunch of busy bodies think they can do anything as an HOA. So I’d go down to the court house and register a $10,000 mechanics lien on each of the HOA officers residences. It used to cost $10 in NJ when I lived there but that was years ago. Then I would send a nice letter to each of them via certified mail demanding that since bylaws are not property rights, they are trespassing on your property. I would give them 14 days to respond and explain under which covenant they are interfering with your property rights or to respond with documentation that they will cease and desist immediately. I would tell them that since state law does not give an HOA the right to trespass on your property except via covenants this they are sending you the letter personally and not as an HOA. Then demand they respond with dropping it or you will sue them for trespass using the liens you placed on their property to collect for court costs. The liens are just an intimidation tactic but hard to remove when they get your nasty letter. They can’t sell the property or refinance until they clear it.

Also while you are at it, drive around the neighborhood. Use the covenants. Find every single violation you can by any HOA officers that are covenant violations. Then send a letter to the HOA with photos demanding that these deficiencies are corrected immediately. This is just round two of intimidation except unlike their threats it is in the covenants so it has legal force and you can use it against the HOA in a law suit to force compliance, paid for by your officer neighbors.

These HOAs are a bunch of busy bodies. When it looks like it’s going to affect them personally they suddenly decide you aren’t worth it.
 
paulengr said:
If I was a homeowner I’d check the deed terms. There are covenants and bylaws. A covenant is set up by the developer and is tied to the deed. It is law. Bylaws are just rules for the HOA itself. For instance set up meetings every other Saturday or that you have 60 days to fill out an application to run for office. What happens is a bunch of busy bodies think they can do anything as an HOA. So I’d go down to the court house and register a $10,000 mechanics lien on each of the HOA officers residences. It used to cost $10 in NJ when I lived there but that was years ago. Then I would send a nice letter to each of them via certified mail demanding that since bylaws are not property rights, they are trespassing on your property. I would give them 14 days to respond and explain under which covenant they are interfering with your property rights or to respond with documentation that they will cease and desist immediately. I would tell them that since state law does not give an HOA the right to trespass on your property except via covenants this they are sending you the letter personally and not as an HOA. Then demand they respond with dropping it or you will sue them for trespass using the liens you placed on their property to collect for court costs. The liens are just an intimidation tactic but hard to remove when they get your nasty letter. They can’t sell the property or refinance until they clear it.

Also while you are at it, drive around the neighborhood. Use the covenants. Find every single violation you can by any HOA officers that are covenant violations. Then send a letter to the HOA with photos demanding that these deficiencies are corrected immediately. This is just round two of intimidation except unlike their threats it is in the covenants so it has legal force and you can use it against the HOA in a law suit to force compliance, paid for by your officer neighbors.

These HOAs are a bunch of busy bodies. When it looks like it’s going to affect them personally they suddenly decide you aren’t worth it.
Click to expand...

Dream on....it doesn’t work that way.
 
retirede said:
Dream on....it doesn’t work that way.
Click to expand...

My HOA president had a beautiful 3 car car port with fancy stone work. Her husband was a building contractor. I had a small Lowe’s shed for a lawnmower. Lots of people had them. The covenants were very clear...no car ports. Nothing about Lowe’s sheds. So she freaked out when I pushed to make her tear down her car port and told her she was trespassing on my property. I got a nice letter that they were reconsidering the barn policy.
 
paulengr said:
My HOA president had a beautiful 3 car car port with fancy stone work. Her husband was a building contractor. I had a small Lowe’s shed for a lawnmower. Lots of people had them. The covenants were very clear...no car ports. Nothing about Lowe’s sheds. So she freaked out when I pushed to make her tear down her car port and told her she was trespassing on my property. I got a nice letter that they were reconsidering the barn policy.
Click to expand...

Not saying there aren’t issues.

But you can’t put a mechanics lien on a property without documentation of work done or money owed and volunteer HOA board members cannot be sued personally for actions they take on behalf of the HOA.

We had a local developer who lived in his development that he wrote the covenants for. No structures allowed not attached to the house. He had a detached garage built on his property. The neighbors raised hell about it so he had a god-awful looking structure built connecting the garage to his house. He’s now compliant, but the neighbors are more mad now than they were before.
 
Marty Funkhauser said:
Hello all. We sometimes do work at a 55 and over community in NJ. Homeowners started calling us to tell us about a letter they received from their home owners assoc.
The letter says the assoc. is giving residents 6 months to change their electrical panel if it is original with the home, because of a recent fire. Here's what I know. The community was built 1970-1975. The people that called our company have GE brand panels 150 and 200 amp. These homes have electric baseboard heat and appliances. Services are underground fed. Some of the homes are stand alone. Some are double and triple units connected together by roof but have fire walls in between. I'm aware of FPE problems and I've seen melted breakers in Challenger. But GE? The whole thing seems kind of off? What do you think??
Click to expand...
. I am a retired after 50 years as a sparky. I have akways had major problems with ge crap from load centers to the 5 or 6 ge 13.2 KV dual switch gear. Service department is a joke. Took me 2 years for them to secure a 5 wire under voltage relay in halve millon dollar 13.2 KV switchgear. I would fight this. Insist that they pay fir an independant contractor to perform IR scans on several units when loaded up. My sister just went thru this with a clueless home inpector while selling her vacation home. Had her ask the person the exact make & model # of IR gun. Oops he only used his hand to tell that a panel that was in bright sunlight with all the baseboard heaters & range turned all the way up was warm. She did not have to replace the panel or any circuit breakers. If a panel is located in a low humidity heated area like a full size basement I believe it could serve properly past 50 years. Where I live all the houses were built in 1960 to 62 and bet over 90% still have original panels. Almost throw up on a fuse sales rep when he srated that all fuses should be replaced when they reach 10 years. So if a fuse sat in stock for 3 years it would inly be good for 7 years. Told him let me guess you are a high commisson sales person. I would try to get something in writing from GE about expected life cycle of their residental panels & breakers.
 
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