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Potential Electrical Hazard
This article is to alert Charlestown residents to a potential electrical hazard. The electrical circuit boxes initially installed in the houses have been found to be possibly unsafe. Circuit breakers may continue to trip or more significantly fail to trip. Photos of these boxes are available for review at the COA office. Below is a safety report extracted from the internet. The address is: www.inspect-ny.com.
“Federal Pacific Electric (FPE) "Stab-Lok" service panels and breakers are a latent hazard and can fail, leading to electrical fires. The problem is that some double-pole (240-Volt) FPE circuit breakers and possibly also some single-pole units simply may not work. We also have reports that independent of the breaker problems, there have been panel and panel-bus fires and arcing failures in some equipment. The failure rates for these circuit breakers were significant and are documented in a Consumer Product Safety Commission study.” (www.inspect-ny.com/fpe/fpepanel.htm)
To identify the circuit breaker panels and breakers discussed at the FPE information website you should look for the product name "Federal Pacific Stab Lok" or "Federal Pioneer Stab Lok" on the equipment. If all product identification labels have been removed, look at the various photos of FPE panels which you can find at the Federal pacific Electric Stab Lok Panel website, and at several of the articles at that website, e.g. see Hazardous FPE Circuit Breakers and Panels. If your do not have access to the internet you should look at the photos at the office.
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