HIBU.US
From a Vero Beach Electrical customer
Happy Memorial Day!!!
Chandeliers are the thing these days
https://www.bhg.com/home-improvement/lighting/
BHG.COM
Lighting
Need some lighting ideas? try this
https://www.pinterest.com/bobvilahome/lighting-bob-vilas-picks/
PINTEREST.COM
Lighting: Bob Vila's Picks
Take a look outside tonight when the sun goes down. What do you see? If you can't see much, you might need some outdoor lighting
https://www.verobeachelectrical.com/2019/02/08/update-your-outdoor-lighting/
VEROBEACHELECTRICAL.COM
Update Your Outdoor Lighting
Why is My Insurance Company Demanding I Remove My Challenger Panel?
In short, many Challenger panels have been demonstrated to be unsafe causing arcing, fires, and lost lives. For this reason, Vero Beach Electrical receives multiple requests from clients each month to have their Challenger (or Zinsco, or Sylvania) electrical panels removed and a new electrical panel installed.
Insurance companies will generally provide a 30-day window to do this work. Sometimes the work cannot be completed within 30 days as it requires FPL (or your local power company) to do a disconnect from the utility source. It can take more than 30 days to get an appointment with FPL due to their work load (which at certain times of the year is impacted by hurricanes and other weather events). In this case, your licensed electrical contractor can provide you with a proposal for replacing your electrical panel, along with a receipt for your payment, which you, in turn, can provide to your insurance company. Vero Beach Electrical has found the insurance companies to be very reasonable in extending the 30-day time frame if an electrical contractor has been hired and paid to complete the panel change.
The longer answer is there can be multiple issues with Zinsco, GTE-Sylvania, and Challenger panels depending on the time frame they were manufactured. From 1964 – 1972 an inferior aluminum alloy, Alloy 6061, was used for both the bus and the breakers of Zinsco panels. Vero Beach Electrical would advocate replacing Zinsco panels from this time period as Alloy 6061 has a sub-optimal tensile strength resulting in considerable expansion and contraction between power consumption and rest. This, in turn, causes oxidization which is an insulator – not a conductor. Insulation results in overheating which can result in fires.
In 1973, Zinsco was sold to GTE-Sylvania and in 1978 the product line was changed to “Challenger”. Millions of Challenger panels were installed in the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s. These panels have a design flaw which causes the connection between the circuit breakers and the bus bar to become loose. This, in turn, causes arcing and results in overheating. Long-term, this heat can cause the breaker to actually fuse with the bus bar (which makes it impossible to remove the breaker). It can also result in the breakers’ contacts fusing together which defeats a circuit breaker’s basic safety mechanism which is to trip in the event of an overcurrent. Allowing the over supply of current to continue down it’s path can result in overheating and a potential fire.
An additional note on electrical panels: Electrical panel manufacturers provide a list of specific circuit breakers to be used in their panels. We sometimes see non-listed circuit breakers have been installed in a client’s panel. This is likely due to the expediency of installing a breaker that can be made to fit and work – and was the only kind of breaker an electrician doing service work had on their truck that day. The problem with utilizing non-listed circuit breakers is that they were not manufactured to the exact bus specifications. Using non-listed circuit breakers can result in the same kind of behavior of loose connections seen in Challenger panels – and the same resulting potential fire hazard.
If you have a question regarding the safety of your panel, please feel free to call Vero Beach Electrical or your own electrical contractor.
