A cautionary tale of a NEMA 14-50 installation

[brucet999]

I have a federal pacific box and my electrician didn't know anything about this. He thinks i am fine. Should i be concerned?

Flasher-Z already answered this question, but I will amplify for you. When I wanted to add a NEMA 14-50 at my Tahoe Cabin, I found that the panel was FPE, so I googled to see where I could buy a 50A 240 FPE breaker. The first search result was a home inspector blog site with articles on the high failure rate of FPE breakers along with the alarming statistic from the Insurance Institute that there are 2,000 residential fires per year in North America attributable to failures of FPE breakers to trip under overload conditions! A report of testing done on new FPE replacement breakers showed 40% faulty right out of the box, failing to trip at 130% of rated load over several minutes time; so not just momentary load of a motor starting.

I immediately replaced my 30-year-old panel (summer cabin, so equivalent to 7 1/2 years use) with Square-D.

 

[wraithnot]

Dear wraithnot, New to forum and 40 years of electrical experience. I hope by now you have replaced your panel with a copper busbar type. I recognize from your photo an ITE panel probably with failing aluminum busbar and possibly too many circuits. "Clean" the busbar is a bandaid repair and most likely will return overheating problem.
Before we install a charger circuit, we perform a load calculation to discover if there is enough ampacity headroom for added load. This, along with electrical permits covers any liability and I have had cases where the service size would not accommodate 40 amp added load.
Thanks.

We have replaced the entire house since that initial post

Of course the new house had both a Federal Pacific main panel outside and a Zinsco panel inside. But the main panel was replaced when we added solar and the subpanel was replaced when the wall it was mounted on went away during a remodel. So everything is shiny and new at this point.

 

[aesculus]

I picked up my car at the factory on Saturday and had the electrician come over to install my NEMA 14-50 outlet bright and early this morning. After about an hour, he was finished and the install looked nice an clean. I wrote him a check, he went on his way, and I quickly plugged the charger in. I figured I would add a few miles of range before it was time to head off to work since the 120 V 12A overnight charge wasn't able to completely replace the charge used up by the weekend joyriding. As I was getting ready to go to work, I smelled something that smelled like burning plastic. I went over to the breaker box where the new breaker for the 14-50 was installed and I noticed some thin wisps of smoke coming out around the new breaker!:scared:

Your picture shows you have a 14-50 plug on a paired 40 amp breaker. What was your car charging at? Is it now set to charge at 32 amps or less?

 

[Rocky_H]

Your picture shows you have a 14-50 plug on a paired 40 amp breaker. What was your car charging at? Is it now set to charge at 32 amps or less?

No, it’s not on the 2 pole 40A breaker. I get what the note is pointing to. See where it says:

Dryer
Car charger
Car charger
Dryer

That is referring to the one on the bottom of the panel, which is a nested breaker, where you can put two 240V circuit breakers into the normal space of one. It’s the one that says:

30
50
50
30

The 30A breaker for the dryer is the outside pair, and the 50A for the 14-50 outlet is the interior pair. See how they have the little metal brackets tying the outside ones and inside ones? I was trying to get one of those types to fit my 50A into my panel, but those nested ones are not compatible with my Square D panel.

 

[aesculus]

No, it’s not on the 2 pole 40A breaker. I get what the note is pointing to. See where it says:

Dryer
Car charger
Car charger
Dryer

That is referring to the one on the bottom of the panel, which is a nested breaker, where you can put two 240V circuit breakers into the normal space of one. It’s the one that says:

30
50
50
30

The 30A breaker for the dryer is the outside pair, and the 50A for the 14-50 outlet is the interior pair. See how they have the little metal brackets tying the outside ones and inside ones? I was trying to get one of those types to fit my 50A into my panel, but those nested ones are not compatible with my Square D panel.

OK. I stand corrected. I just jumped at what was the shiniest breakers in the panel thinking they must be the newest.

 

[SV-Sparks]

Ressecturing an old thread, apologies, but I can't tell if I have one of the defunct panels - It says Federal Electric, is that synonymous with Fed Pacific? (photo attached)

 

[GoTslaGo]

Ressecturing an old thread, apologies, but I can't tell if I have one of the defunct panels - It says Federal Electric, is that synonymous with Fed Pacific? (photo attached)
View attachment 188450

Sorry not an electrician here, but you do have those orange tabs with black lettering that @FlasherZ had said was a tell-tale sign of Fed-Pacific hardware (he also mentioned they were called Fed-Pacific-Electric), so I would be suspicious. Also the box looks really old, and only of 70 Amps? That may not be enough to charge the car and do anything else. Most people I've seen on this forum talk about minimum of 200 Amps. Good luck!

PS--I used the @FlasherZ for you. It is a simple way to "call" someone in this forum who knows WAY more about something to see if they can help.

 

[brucet999]

Ressecturing an old thread, apologies, but I can't tell if I have one of the defunct panels - It says Federal Electric, is that synonymous with Fed Pacific? (photo attached)
View attachment 188450

Yes; earlier version before name change. Better copper bus bars but same bad Stab-Lok breaker design.

Guide to Federal Electric Panels - Federal Electric Stab-Lok® Product Identification photos

I replaced the FPE panel in my Tahoe cabin (what could go wrong with failure prone breakers in a 75-year old all wood cabin?) with a similar-sized new Square-D panel and breakers from Home Depot before installing a 50A breaker for my 14-50 outdoor EV outlet..

 

[brucet999]

Ressecturing an old thread, apologies, but I can't tell if I have one of the defunct panels - It says Federal Electric, is that synonymous with Fed Pacific? (photo attached)
View attachment 188450

I presume that this is a detached garage with living quarters added on upstairs at some time.
In the picture I see that this sub-panel has a 40A main breaker, so probably doesn't have suitable wire size supplying it to handle an EV outlet in any case - not even a 14-30 along with the other loads it is carrying. I would recommend a higher capacity Square-D or Murray replacement with suitable sized new wiring, if the service entrance panel can support it. I wouldn't be surprised if you found your service entrance is also FPE, unless that has been upgraded already.

 

[pfrost]

FWIW, if you know what you're doing, fuses are a lot more reliable than circuit breakers. The reason they went out of fashion is that so many people *don't* know what they're doing with fuses. There's a special tool for pulling bar fuses, for instance: wooden pliers. Did you know?

I grew up in a house with *beautiful* panels from the 1920s. Polished brass, with varnished wood mounting. Bar fuses in pairs of brass clips. Double knife switches (wood & brass) on each circuit. We replaced them with a circuit-breaker panel when we upgraded the electrical system -- partly to make the house more saleable, because the exposed electrical current scares current purchasers. (It's perfectly safe as long as you don't stick your fingers in it!) The electricians walked off with the panels. I hope they didn't go in a dumpster; I suspect, given the admiration that the electricians had for the 1920s workmanship, that they're on some electrician's mantlepiece. I wish I had pictures.

This old post was really interesting for me, because I'm about to pitch installing a nema 14-50 outlet in our 1930s apartment building and every time an electrician looks at the panel I want to do it from, they remark on its beauty. Attaching a picture. Is this what you were referring to? Also, I think the fuse puller you're talking about is this, no (albeit the modern nylon version)? Cooper Bussmann Fuse Puller-FP-2 - The Home Depot
May purchase one for our maintenance guys if they don't already have one.