Circuit breakers are designed to keep you and your family safe.
Challenger electrical panel problems.
Most of the breakers were challenger brand breakers from the original installation but some were siemens brand breakers from a remodel about 5 years after the house was built.
These conditions alone are sufficient to damage the electrical panel rendering it unreliable and thus unsafe independent of any innate reliabilty issues with challenger panels and breakers.
Hi i have a challenger sl20 20 40 panel installed 26 years ago.
Challenger panel overheat reports are not restricted to the use of challenger breakers in fpe panels but it is no surprise and no coincidence that challenger s manufacture and sale of fpe stab lok replacement circuit breakers would by itself produce a blizzard of panel failures bus overheats and circuit breaker no trip failures since replicating a design that has known inherent failures is asking for trouble.
Challenger electrical panel cover off the issues with challenger outlined.
Can a replace a 2 pole 30 amp breaker at the top with the 2 pole 50a breaker recommended by the installation manual.
Also many gte sylvania or sylvania panels are simply re branded zinsco panels or contain the problem zinsco design.
Scalding and overheating on an electrical panel is a fire waiting to happen.
To break it down the circuit breakers have been known to overheat cause scalding on the bus bars.
Sunday march 1 2020 challenger brand electrical panels were installed in homes during the 1980s and 1990s but have since been found to have a defect that causes the bus bars to overheat under normal operating conditions.
I did not have any problems with the panel or the breakers and all of them are the original ones.
Wiring a circuit is a difficult process and it turns out that the circuit breakers used in the challenger electrical panels were faulty causing the circuits to short out and overheat under normal circumstances.
However there are a few brands of breaker still in use today that might not only fail to protect.
Check your panel today as challenger was very popular in the 80s and 90s.
The name zinsco anywhere on the panel is a sure sign it should be replaced.
So if there ever is a short or other problems the surge of power melts wires and starts fires in your home.
How to tell if you have one.
Certain types of challenger electrical panels and breakers catch fire.
Due to this some insurance companies are now requiring challenger panels to be replaced.
You can see this in action from the picture below.
I would like to install an eaton whole house surge protector.
