Zinsco breakers on line for sale - Any good ?

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Stevenfyeager

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United States, Indiana
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electrical contractor
I know, I have kept a pledge 15 years ago or so to never again do any work in a Zinsco panel, but rather tell the customer I will not work in it but to replace it instead. But a nearby church pastor asked me to change a two pole range circuit to a single pole gas range circuit. "Zoro" link has a Zinsco breaker for $41. Are these any good ? Am I crazy to do this ?
 
If you truly believe they are so dangerous that merely working on one will cause some kind of disaster, why do you need us to tell you it is a bad idea?

Or to tell you that the risk is very low, but not zero, and especially given you likely are going to reduce the risk by greatly reducing the current flow, you may well be improving the situation.

:)
 
The breakers at Zoro are new replacements made by Connecticut Electric. They're probably fine as far as they go. They don't eliminate the risk that when you start jostling things around in an old Zinsco panel you may end up with poor contact issues between the bus and the breakers, new and old.

Your exposure is cumulative, i.e. the more Zinscos you touch the more likely you'll get a call back you never wanted.
 
Stevenfyeager said:
I know, I have kept a pledge 15 years ago or so to never again do any work in a Zinsco panel, but rather tell the customer I will not work in it but to replace it instead. But a nearby church pastor asked me to change a two pole range circuit to a single pole gas range circuit. "Zoro" link has a Zinsco breaker for $41. Are these any good ? Am I crazy to do this ?
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You don't need much power for a gas range. Can you find a lightly loaded circuit with the same ampacity as the gas range and splice into it? Probably 15A would do it. Maybe a lighting circuit or similar.
 
The problem with Zinsco was more about the panels and bus. The bus would corrode at the breaker connection, which would heat up and damage the breakers. Tests in the Connecticut Electric breakers plugged on to old Zinsco panels showed that they were not much different.
 
I said the same about Zinsco and also Federal Pacific. But when I was starving and had a call to replace either of them, I didn't feel I had a choice. I had to eat and they were a little safer with the newer breakers.
 
jmellc said:
I said the same about Zinsco and also Federal Pacific. But when I was starving and had a call to replace either of them, I didn't feel I had a choice. I had to eat and they were a little safer with the newer breakers.
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Yeah, that’s likely a lesser of two evils situation.

In one job I was asked to look at however (for a neighbor), turned out their insurance company was not going to consider the aftermarket breakers as a viable solution. Their rider said in essence “Zinsco name on anything = no coverage for electrical fires”, no discussions over details. Their panel was indoors and the bus was in really good shape, so he wanted to just change out the breakers. Didn’t matter.
 
I have heard the classified Zinsco replacements perform as badly or slightly worse then the OEM breakers, they have been obsolete for a long time and there comes a time when it's time to get rid of obsolete gear, like Zinsco/Sylvania, FPE, ITE Pushmatic, C-H & SQ D XO, old Multibreaker panels, the list goes on.
 
norcal said:
I have heard the classified Zinsco replacements perform as badly or slightly worse then the OEM breakers, they have been obsolete for a long time and there comes a time when it's time to get rid of obsolete gear, like Zinsco/Sylvania, FPE, ITE Pushmatic, C-H & SQ D XO, old Multibreaker panels, the list goes on.
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I fully agree but the customer sometimes won't pay for it. I would have walked away from some of these if I'd had more work. I did walk away from some houses and buildings that had "spider web wiring". Couldn't tell where one web stopped and another started. "Just fix what's here." "Sorry, there is no fixing this."
 
Little Bill said:
You don't need much power for a gas range. Can you find a lightly loaded circuit with the same ampacity as the gas range and splice into it? Probably 15A would do it. Maybe a lighting circuit or similar.
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Yes, I looked when I was there, unfortunately, no other receptacles around and no practical route to the panel.
 
Stevenfyeager said:
Yes, I looked when I was there, unfortunately, no other receptacles around and no practical route to the panel.
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I was talking about splicing/pigtailing in the panel. Take the wire off a lighting circuit, pigtail it with one of the stove wires. Move the other (white?) wire to the neutral bar. Save from buying another breaker.
 
jmellc said:
I have heard the classified Zinsco replacements perform as badly or slightly worse then the OEM breakers,
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Source for that is likley https://inspectapedia.com/electric/Circuit-Breaker-Defects-Aronstein-IEEE-2018.pdf
But what it really says is the old ones are better than the new ones.


Molded Case Circuit Breakers - Some Holes in the Electrical Safety Net
JESSE ARONSTEIN DAVID W. CARRIER2
IEEE Access December 2017

Brand 9(X) are FPE, clearly, but not mentioned by name.

1700981121067.png

Brand 1 (X) is the original, manufactured prior to 1960.
The product line was then sold to another company and
marketed as Brand 9 (X) until the early 1980s. That company
ceased manufacturing operations a few years after it was publicly disclosed that it had cheated on circuit breaker testing
for about 15 years. Yet another company ultimately obtained
the rights to the design and continues marketing this type of
breaker as Brand 10 (X). Their product today has a unique
case color and style, so that from the outside it appears to
be different. Inside the case, however, is essentially the same
mechanism as Brands 1 (X) and 9 (X).


The Brand X type mechanism is unique in that there
is no provision for calibrating the breakers once they are
assembled. The internal mechanism must be calibrated before
being placed into the case by bending a metal piece of the
mechanism at a specific point.

The favorable test results on the more than 60 year old
Brand 1 (X) breakers suggest that the original manufacturer
had the production and calibration processes under control
and that their breakers resist serious deterioration in service.
Note that the common trip mechanism that sometimes jams
in the brand X type multi-pole breakers did not exist when
Brand 1 (X) breakers were manufactured
 
My response: Don't do it!

I would tell the pastor that, in your professional opinion (as it is in mine), every day that the Zisco panel is in service increases the risk of a fire and the associated risk to the lives of the congregation. Telling this to the congregation might inspire them to raise the money for a panel replacement.

Of course, unlike you, I no longer need to take on projects in order to pay my bills. I don't envy you your choices.
 
Stevenfyeager said:
I know, I have kept a pledge 15 years ago or so to never again do any work in a Zinsco panel, but rather tell the customer I will not work in it but to replace it instead. But a nearby church pastor asked me to change a two pole range circuit to a single pole gas range circuit. "Zoro" link has a Zinsco breaker for $41. Are these any good ? Am I crazy to do this ?
Click to expand...
Not 100% perfect: but you could use the NEC tap rules, and go out to a new box for new circuits.
Leave the old stuff untouched.
Or remove the gas range breaker, and pigtail for the 120V circuit to an existing breaker.
The less you touch the better.
 
@Bryncenesbitt has a nice suggestion. Leaving the 2 pole intact, pull existing 40-50A range wire into a new small sub panel. Then run from that a new circuit and breaker.

Still would however recommend total replacement. Failure rate and fire risk increases with every year that old panel stays. The Church paster should above all else be concerned with the physical well being of the parishioners.
Most don't understand that "the breakers aren't tripping what's the problem" IS most time THE Problem with the old breakers and sometimes even worse with certain panels. Most mfg. indicate 20-30yrs max serviceability of the breaker and 50yr on the load centers.
 
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