Do You Have a Federal Pacific or Zinsco Panel?

How to Spot a Federal Pacific Panel

• The label: look inside the panel door for “Federal Pacific Electric,” “FPE” or “Stab-Lok.”
• The breakers: Stab-Lok breakers are thin and often have red or orange tips on the handles.
• The age: these panels went into homes from roughly the 1950s through the 1980s, so many older Baton Rouge houses still have one.

How to Spot a Zinsco Panel

• The label: “Zinsco” or “Sylvania” (some were sold as Sylvania-Zinsco).
• The breakers: often in mixed colors such as blue, red and green.
• Warning signs: scorch marks, a burning smell or breakers that feel warm. If you see any of these, stop and call an electrician.

Why Electricians Flag These Panels

Some Federal Pacific Stab-Lok breakers have been found not to trip when a circuit is overloaded, which is the one job a breaker has. Zinsco breakers can loosen or melt onto the bar they connect to, so they may not shut off when they should. Not every one of these panels will fail, but home inspectors and insurers often flag them, and some Louisiana insurers won’t cover a home that still has one.

Repair or Replace?

With these two brands, swapping a single breaker usually doesn’t fix the underlying problem, so replacing the panel is often the answer. We look at the whole panel first and tell you plainly what we find. See panel upgrades and replacements for how that job works.

What to Do if You Find One

• Don’t take the panel cover off yourself.
• If a breaker trips repeatedly, leave it off and don’t keep resetting it.
• Hold off on adding big new loads, like an EV charger, until the panel has been looked at.
• When the panel is replaced, it’s a good time to add whole-house surge protection.

We work in Baton Rouge, Denham Springs, Prairieville and Gonzales.