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The power in several rooms has randomly gone out then comes back on seconds later. We consulted with an electrician that told us to replace the whole panel but we can’t afford $5000 to do that right now so instead we decided to replace the problem breakers. When my husband turned off the main breaker to replace the others it sparked a little. While replacing the first breaker he bumped the main breaker still in the off position and it sparked some more. If we replace the main breaker will this remedy the problem??? Also in the picture the two breakers in the off position we have no idea what they power.The breakers we are replacing are from left to right, the first 3 20amp breakers.

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Harper - Reinstate Monica
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Stacie
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    Where are you located? Where I live (Dallss TX) it would not cost $5k to replace a basic panel. Howver, it is possible that replacing a panel might trigger a provision that the entire system be brought up to current code and this could be expensive. – Jim Stewart Feb 20 '23 at 17:30
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    I live in Northern California. – Stacie Feb 20 '23 at 17:32
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    Ever heard the phrase "accident waiting to happen"? Get another quote / price from a different electrician. – Solar Mike Feb 20 '23 at 17:34
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    Sparking main breaker plus the picture of the panel I believe gives you reason to replace right now. Have the power company turn off the power and you can do most of the changing with an electrician inspecting. – crip659 Feb 20 '23 at 17:38
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    Replace the whole panel? – Stacie Feb 20 '23 at 17:40
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    I think that is one of the known bad panels that is dangerous to have. They have been known to burn up, and most of the breakers do not trip when there is a problem. – crip659 Feb 20 '23 at 17:40
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    Thanks for the info. – Stacie Feb 20 '23 at 17:43
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    That is a Zinsco panel. They are notorious for bus arcing and breakers that don't trip when they should (fatal design, replacements won't help). See https://diy.stackexchange.com/questions/193809/ You need to replace it ASAP before it burns your house down. – nobody Feb 20 '23 at 17:44
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    That was the name I could not think of. They are a bad design. The breakers do not trip on shorts but tend to burn. If a breaker does trip, it is lucky. – crip659 Feb 20 '23 at 17:44
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    Damn ok I was hoping this would be a simple fix. Thank you! I will tell my husband the whole things gotta go. – Stacie Feb 20 '23 at 17:45
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    Have to support all others here, that's a zinsco panel. Here in Washington state (probably others) you can't even get house insurance if you have a zinsco panel. – George Anderson Feb 20 '23 at 18:01
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    You're getting suggestions that the price quoted is high. There's a reason pricing questions are off-topic: It all depends on where you live. NorCal may well be more expensive than where some of these folks are. The only way to know if that's reasonable in your area is to call 3 or 4 more electricians out to give you estimates. – FreeMan Feb 21 '23 at 17:56
  • You may get away without an inspection and fees. We just did our panel this past weekend and the electricity company didn't look at it at all. We told them what day to turn it off and called them to turn it back on, and they were fine with it. We're in Texas outside city limits, on a coop electric company, and had an FPE panel. – user34314 Feb 23 '23 at 03:27

2 Answers2

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This is a ZINSCO fire-starter panel. It's gotta go.

It's not old; it was built defective. The breakers are defective. The bus design is also defective, so even if magic safe breakers could be obtained, the bus is no good.

It cannot be fixed by replacing breakers; that's throwing good money after bad.

Whoever quoted $5000 is clearly "naysaying", that's a highball quote specifically so you could use it as an excuse not to do the work. If that's how local electricians want to be, then for Pete's sake this panel only has 9 circuits in it! I'd hit the library and read every book they have on home electrical, cover to cover... and see if it's something you could DIY.

Since this appears to be an "All-in-one" meter + main + breakers, the utility would be involved and they'll want to see permits, but after you've skilled up with those books maybe talk to your permit issuing authority and find out what it'll take.

... another option, especially if you are thinking of a service upgrade, is to install a new meter-main or all-in-one right next to it. Complete with its own new riser pipe and weatherhead. Connect the breaker panel areas of both with several short conduits. You can do all this work at your leisure, since your house is still running on the old panel while all this is being built and inspected. You can also take low-priority circuits and extend their hot and neutral to the breaker and neutral bar in the new panel. (via the conduits I mentioned). Then, you have Cutover Day, where the power company comes out and moves their drop wire from the old weatherhead to the new weatherhead. Now all the circuits you moved are powered up, and the circuits still in the old panel are dead. Move them at your leisure (it's pretty easy).

The only complication I see is some aluminum SEU wire in use on some large circuits. Don't panic! Nothing wrong with it when you follow the rules.* To extend those you'll need ILSCO Mac Block Connectors - which are screw-down miniature Polaris connectors (similar to your neutral bar, but with only 2 screws, and with an insulating jacket). Like all such connectors, their bodies are made of aluminum, so they work fine with aluminum wire.

* 1. Use connectors and terminals rated for aluminum wire, but not purple wire nuts. 2. Torque the terminals to specification with a torque screwdriver. (#2 is a very recent discovery, actually).

Harper - Reinstate Monica
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  • Thanks for the info. We are going to try and do it ourselves. I thought $5000 was outrageous! It seems easy enough and the new panel and breakers only cost me $300. I’m hoping it’s an easy switch job. Thanks again. – Stacie Feb 20 '23 at 19:50
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    @Stacie yeah I just added a bunch to that DIY option. You will have permitting costs because you can't do it without the power company's support (doing it on live wires is out of the question)... and they won't turn you back on without a permit. – Harper - Reinstate Monica Feb 20 '23 at 19:51
  • Heck Harp, great advice. 2 more comments: 1) Zinsco breakers, if you can find them, are ridiculously expensive. 2) A good friend of mine had a Zinsco panel, tried to replace a defective breaker and it had "welded" it self to the bus bar! Couldn't replace it. I told him to just have the entire panel replaced, which he did....think he went with Cutler Hammer or SquareD QO (NOT HOMELINE) – George Anderson Feb 20 '23 at 21:35
  • @Harper-ReinstateMonica geeze I keep thinking of more stuff. You are giving great advice, as usual! When I replaced my farther-in-laws panel, because due to an addition, the location was no longer code legal, not only that it was a true fuse box, not breakers. So I installed the new panel in a code compliant location and ran cables to the old fuse box to use as a junction box. When I did all the wiring I could do, we called the PoCo and they actually transferred service before a final inspection. Yes, we did pull a permit, so that probably helped. ...continued – George Anderson Feb 20 '23 at 21:49
  • Doing a side by side, as you suggested, makes it a lot less stressful for a Diy'er – George Anderson Feb 20 '23 at 21:51
  • @Harper-ReinstateMonica can you point to me which ones are the aluminum that you were talking about? – Stacie Feb 21 '23 at 05:17
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    @Stacie don't worry about it. The aluminum panic is wrong. But the one I see is the range. Aluminum is harmless when properly terminated, but 3-wire range and dryer connections are quite dangerous. – Harper - Reinstate Monica Feb 21 '23 at 06:03
  • 3-wire connection where? I see two on each breaker except one that only has one wire to it. – Stacie Feb 21 '23 at 16:04
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    I'm not sure "do it at your leisure" and "this panel is defective and starts fires" are compatible with each other... – Michael Feb 21 '23 at 16:06
  • @Stacie A dangerous 3-wire dryer or range connection would be observable at the dryer or range. I can't speculate what you have since, for instance, the 4th wire can be non-flexible metal conduit, which counts as a ground wire. I'm just mentioning it so you can include it in your "keep or replace" thinking. – Harper - Reinstate Monica Feb 21 '23 at 18:40
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    @Michael Presumably, OP doesn't want to live for a week in a hotel, and wants "Cutover Day" to happen in one day. Pros can do that easy enough; they've done hundreds of them. For a first time DIYer, though, the more tasks you can offload away from Cutover Day, the smoother it'll go. So I'm saying "at your leisure" as shortcut for "not needed to do on Crunch Day". – Harper - Reinstate Monica Feb 21 '23 at 18:43
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Unfortunately, you have a Zinsco panel. These are known to have problems, and the problems you describe are symptomatic, and dangerous.

In some panels, problem breakers can be replaced with newer, more reliable, breakers. As I understand it, the replacement breakers available for these panels are not necessarily any better, and really the only proper thing to do is replace the panel.

$5,000 is a lot. My panel replacement last year cost a lot less, and I think it was quite a bit more involved - replacing 2 1950s fuse boxes + 1 small CH panel with a big CH panel, plus new meter pan and cable, and more breakers installed. On the other hand, I have known my electrician for a long time and if you just get someone at random (in any trade, not just electrical) they'll tend to charge more.

If you can do an actual replacement "in place" (with mine everything moved a few feet because...reasons) and your utility (which will need to be involved, because you will need the meter pulled to do this) is OK with not replacing the meter pan and the feed from the pole to the meter and from the meter to the panel and your local jurisdiction does not require putting in AFCI/GFCI on everything (generally not required for a straight replacement) then this should be an easy job.

Definitely worth a few calls. I would start with friends/neighbors. Ideal, in my experience, is to find an independent electrician (a "one man shop") who has been in the business for decades. But hard to say for sure as the market is still very tight. But definitely worth replacing. This is a dangerous situation.

When (not "if") you replace the panel, consider a much larger panel. By my count, excluding the main breaker and the unknowns, you have 12 breakers in use. That's including at least 2 (dryer, stove) that are really double-breakers and not two single breakers. Translated into a new panel and, at least initially, avoiding "1/2 size/tandem" breakers, that means 12 spaces. Do not get a 12 space panel. Assuming you have the physical space for it, get at least a 20 space panel, in order to have room for future expansion. Make sure it is 20 spaces, not 20 circuits. "20 spaces/40 circuits" is OK, "12 spaces/24 circuits" is not. Larger, if you have the physical space, is even better.

One possible problem (it was a minor problem for me, but I planned around it because I knew about the problem in advance) is working space. Current code requires a 30" wide (including the width of the panel) and 36" deep space in front of the panel for working space. If you have fixed items (plumbing, HVAC, whatever) in front of the panel then that could be a problem, and moving the panel makes things more complicated. Anything portable - just move it out of the way.

manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact
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    Thank you for answering. Looks like I will be replacing the panel. – Stacie Feb 20 '23 at 17:47
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    I know it is a big deal (and expense). I waited on mine until it was generator time (no practical way to do that with my old panels) but most people in my neighborhood replaced there panels decades ago. But I didn't have serious deficiencies that I knew about (did find some in the replacement process, but fortunately had not caused problems). But you have known problems at both the specific (you've seen sparks) and general (Zinsco) levels. – manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact Feb 20 '23 at 17:49
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    How much is the house worth to you in un-burned-down condition? More than $5000? But also, yes, shop around for a better deal. There is such a thing as the "I don't want the job" price (quote high and hope someone else takes it, but if you get it, you get paid extra for taking on a job you were not thrilled about doing in the first place.) – Ecnerwal Feb 20 '23 at 18:51
  • @Ecnerwal When shopping around for a better deal in the USA, is it a good idea to let the electricians know that you are getting several quotes for the work? – Andrew Morton Feb 21 '23 at 18:01
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    @AndrewMorton In my experience, it doesn't make much of a difference for residential work. There's plenty of jobs out there so there's just not that much competition over smaller jobs. Big, high-dollar commercial projects are a different beast, though. – bta Feb 21 '23 at 23:01
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    @AndrewMorton I have found that most tradesmen consider whether the homeowner is honest and reasonable, and many will give a better price to someone they expect will be a better customer. Letting them know in a pleasant (maybe indirect) way that theirs isn't the only price you're getting is one way of helping to establish that for yourself, IMHO, because it helps them to know that and it's not confrontational or distrusting or coercive. If it comes up, you could let them know that you're considering not only price. There's probably no need to tell them how many other quotes. – Jeffiekins Feb 23 '23 at 05:24