Electrical Panels You Need To Upgrade Now!

In this episode I am joined by Isaac Colon the owner of Electric Brothers Co. located in Pico Rivera California.
 
I hired Isaac to do a major electrical upgrade on my home. I found his company searching on google, I am 200% satisfied with the work they did and their professionalism before, during and after the electrical upgrade.

I highly recommend Electric Brothers Co.

Isaac explains what we all need to know about electrical panels and which brands you should replace asap!
 
Electrical Panels You should replace on your home:

Federal Pacific Electric Stab-Lok
Bulldog PushMatic
Zinsco
Challenger

Isaac Colon
562-354-8900
Residential & Commercial
https://electricbro.com/

Transcript

John Laforme: 0:00

Buying a home? Don't panic. Just listen to the rest of this podcast Hey, everybody, we are back with Isaac again, Isaac's back has long time since I've seen you know, right, it feels like this is Isaac cologne with a electric brother's Electric Company. And I met Isaac, I found him on Google. Actually, I did a search. And I was looking for someone to upgrade my electrical panel, because I have what's called a Federal Pacific POS attached to my house, I had to move it for a couple of different reasons. One, it was at the very corner of my house that I want to remove, because my driveway is too small. That was the one thing that bothered me about it. Number two, that the fact that it's a Federal Pacific Electric stab lock, which is probably the worst panel out there. I've, I've recommended replacing hundreds of these over the past 10 years to customers. And here I am buying a house that has one. I'm like, of course it has one. Why wouldn't it right? But I know what it is. I know what it means. I wasn't afraid to buy the house because of it. And I don't think anyone out there buying a house with one of these should be afraid of buying the house. It's just a it's just a small fraction of the house. It's important. It's a safety issue, but you can definitely correct it with the help of someone like Isaac. So thanks again for being my electrical contractor. Yeah, your company, your crew did a fantastic job. The reason why I want to, I want everyone to hear this from me. I interviewed several different electrical contractors. I've talked to different contractors on the phone, not everybody came out and gave me gave me estimates and stuff like that. And I did not pick you because of your price. I picked you because of your service. Because you actually came out here and walked the property three different times. And your story didn't change at all. Yeah, everything you said the first day was as exact same stuff, you said the second day and so on, you gave me a detailed written out estimate, with everything right on it. And you responded, you constantly responded to my calls. And I know I put you off for a while because I was still in the process of my bathroom upgrade. And it was just too much work. And I had to really think out what I wanted to do with that logical panel upgrade. So I really, I don't like to certain things I don't want to rush. And I had to plan this out for big future improvements of the house. So I had to, well, I don't want to repeat just upgrade the panel box and then have to move it later. That's doing it twice. That's just a total waste of money. So I really had to think it out. And I think that time that that I put you off was was perfect. Because I had to finish up the bathroom project. That took a lot longer and a lot more money than I expected. So I was a little I was running a little dry there on the cash. But it looks good, though. And it came out you know? Yeah, it came out really good. So this is the panel. Yeah, that you guys have removed. This is my very own Federal Pacific piece of shit. Pos we call it.

Isaac Colon: 3:31

tell people why upgrading. This is a good idea. Oh, well. Everybody knows Federal Pacific, though. Not everybody knows. Yeah, not everybody knows anybody in the field. homeowners don't know this. A lot of these because their connection points are horrible. Yes. See that right there? Yep. This is your connection point for a panel and it's point at that little area. Yeah, this is what's grabbing on for you electricity, these two little thin little thin bars. Compared to a newer style breaker like a Siemens. You have a thicker bar, right? Better contact compressed, a lot better not like this. Right? See the difference of the of it. Thickness of the Steel's a little bit better. The heat expansion rhythm bars on here a lot better. So expends the heat veterans neck contracts to load here. That's what happens to machi build up in between here and it's you know, not enough right connection calcium buildup, you get that little arcing and yeah, I noticed when I was dissecting this, I pulled this apart my garage last night I just took all the pieces apart just this week I expose this. And this right here is the main disconnect. And these are the two service conductors coming off that a go are going to go into the meter meter right up to the meter. So yeah, I've like I said this had to go. And as you can see, these these breakers are here because of my bathroom upgrade. So the electrician I had prior to meeting you who did the bathroom work

John Laforme: 5:00

For me, he had, he had to remove a couple old ones and add some of these in here. So what else the homeowners need to know about this? Besides the contact point? Is that is that the main reason why it's a problem?

Isaac Colon: 5:13

No, this breakers are known for not really tripping and working correctly. You know, these, these components they use are horrible. They're just, yeah, they don't they don't work does good, right.

John Laforme: 5:23

So you may turn it off, and it may still be on. And that seems to be a problem with our different panels. Yeah, a

Isaac Colon: 5:29

lot of times to customers call me say everything's on the panel. And I don't have the person in the house. So there I go, taking my tests or my meter. And obviously, I'll check it with the with the stupid stick first real quick, and then see, okay, she does have power everywhere, or they do have power everywhere. But I'll still bring up my meter and check. All right, I'm old school, I like to use more than wiggy meters on stuff like this. So I will start and I just like that more old school. But when it comes down to technical troubleshooting, like more like on VFDs and those types of machines and motors, that's when I use my Fluke digital meter. You know, that's one but

John Laforme: 6:06

so like I said, this is 100 amp service. Correct. And we upgraded my house to what 200 amp Siemens see already 200 amp. So what we did at my house was first thing we did, well, not I did, you guys did is installed a 200 amp box on the back of my garage. So what I decided to do is take this off my house, and then relocate the whole service behind the garage. So basically, my garage is the main hub of my electrical. There's a lot of reasons why I did that. Because I have plans on putting a adu in the backyard eventually. So now I know I can run power to that real easy, super simple short run straight from the 200 amp. Right. And then having now the garage also had a few, a few other bells and whistles. And here's one of them right here. This this garage had all this stuff in it look at this, it had this with the throw a big throw switch on it here. Very old school this was connected to can you grab that for me was Greg was also connected to another similar box this size with fuses in it. So I had a stab block. I had these fuses. And these fuses were were my electrical system. But I gotta be honest with you, I lived here for a year, before I touched any of this, and not one of these things went out on me the whole time?

Isaac Colon: 7:36

Well, probably because it didn't trip, right? They don't trip. And they'll just keep on heating up and heating up until I started saying. So when I go, when I go investigate, I thought for sure one of these would have blown or something. Well, that will probably give up. But usually when I go to people's houses, and they're like, Well, I never had any problems. And I started looking at all the wires and everything. I'll start looking and sometimes you can see the jacket or the wires like we're here it will be bubbling. Yeah, it'll start getting hot. And then you can look at the neutral busbar too. And you can see if there's heat problems already, because this is not tripping. And that's when I know right? It's already giving them problems. They just don't see it. Right,

John Laforme: 8:08

right. Right, right. To the untrained eye when you're not gonna know. But anyways, this was, this is what I bought all these fun things. So it was fun dissecting it and taking it all apart. Not to mention all the conduit and I had, I had three overhead lines. I'm pretty sure the homeowner did that for the last homeowner. So we had four Did you had three? Well, we had the main service coming in from the pole, right 240 coming in from the pole. And then from this panel, we had two more 240s To separate 240s Going into the garage. So cord, one was to power the garage. And the other one was to power the electric plug we talked about on the last podcast. So it was it was interesting at the siddalee. So now I have no overhead lines. And that was another part of the goal, certainly is to clean up the look of the property. So all these overhead lines, no more between the garage and the house. I only have one overhead set going between the back of the garage and the pole behind my house. Yeah, so the property looks a lot cleaner now. It does. It's really nice. And he upgraded the grill all the electrical in the garage because he had to remove all these fuse boxes and all the conduit that went with it. And I think there was only two or three receptacles in there. Yeah, yeah. And one of them was a two prong that we talked about last podcast. And that's it. Yeah. So that was that that came from that and then we had the 240 for the dryer. So we were yanked all that out. And now I have what 18 plugs in there now.

Isaac Colon: 9:48

You got a couple of dedicated service plugs. You got your Eevee for the future. Yeah,

John Laforme: 9:52

I got we put six LED lights in the ceiling and we pimped out the attic area. We raised up your ceiling too. Yeah, and I garage door I raised up the garage door so I really pimped out my garage. I still got a lot of work to do in there. I haven't finished it yet but all the all the important stuff is done. Yeah.

Isaac Colon: 10:09

Your project was pretty interesting though to relocate that that panel, you know what? Yeah, relocation, I was thinking off the side of the house, right. And that's what I'm used to. But when you were telling me I want to relocate it to the, to the far back, I was like, okay, yeah. And then I had you had your mindset and why you wanted it. So I mean, yeah,

John Laforme: 10:26

I mean, because I have experienced what, how so I wasn't totally in the dark. So I had to, I just had to think about it and stare at it for months, like I always do. Everything I do. I don't rush, I just stare at it. I stare at it and go sleep on it. Okay, I have to I have to bite the bullet and pay for this job. I have to pay someone to do this job. It's just too big. But I also had the trench between the pee in the garage. And I had a cup I caught a concrete walkway, about 18 feet between the house and the garage. And dig had to dig down 3030 30 by 30 inches and then your guys came out and dug down like two more inches to make sure the top of that top of that conduit was at 30 inches. So and then these guys had to run from the back of the garage. What they did was they they ran all the cable up through the garage attic because I just built a garage attic. And then they ran it down the outside wall on the left and then went underground went underground. And that was that was a homerun shot too. That was what 80 feet of cable. Yeah, one shot, I think was 80 feet of cable you guys had to pull from the main panel all the way through the garage down the conduit underground backup into the house. And then they installed 100 amp sub panel in my hallway. So all the power has been upgraded. And and then we found some other stuff. But we'll talk about that on another episode. We got more panels to talk about here. So let's stay focused on that. And so if you show up to a house and you see this what do you tell any customer

Isaac Colon: 12:06

they have an OLED panel, they have an OLED panel and I recommend them changing it out. Okay. If they're if they're just living by themselves, I get it. It's working fine, but they're calling me because they want to do central AC and their son wants to get an Eevee

John Laforme: 12:21

Yeah, it's time to upgrade yet upgrade. Yeah, but they are known to be a fire hazard. Yeah, they are. So a little information on this panel. did some research just to refresh my memory. These estimated 20 2800 fires a year from these panels. Yeah. And that's from the Consumer Product Safety Commission. So they're the ones that are saying that and you know, these panels were installed from mid 50s Up until the 80s I don't recall seeing any of that, that high up but like in the 80s or late 70s I typically see these in 50s and 60s homes that's when I typically see them but my house my house was originally built in 1944 So my panel the old fuse box that was probably there was upgraded to this was probably one of these what you had before Yeah, and then they upgraded to the statblock as back then that was probably the best thing since sliced bread right as the latest thing on the market. Oh look how pretty the orange breakers handles are now

Isaac Colon: 13:25

I can see what's a 20

John Laforme: 13:28

Little did they know that we're installing fire hazards Yeah, but I took years later to figure that out. So you know I guess the Consumer Product Safety Commission determined that these panels failed certain UL calibration requirements and that's why they started okay and these are not that great so we need to fix this or you know, stop selling them and everything else so that's that's how that went down. I don't have a zinsco with me. No,

Isaac Colon: 13:59

but we think we have a zinsco breaker though we do okay good. I was in school breaker here I got

John Laforme: 14:04

some photos I want to show you as well. Breakers I have here too Okay, so right here we got some photos we can look at real quick There you go. So here's a here's a dissected zinsco just like I did with this one here. It's out of the box. It's of course when you see this on the house to be a metal box wrapped around it. But so these are faulty for is it the bus bars? Yeah,

Isaac Colon: 14:37

the bus scenes and the breakers not responding and tripping that where they should.

John Laforme: 14:41

Okay, so the bus bar is underneath all the breakers? You can't see it. Yeah, you have to take the breakers off to see that. Yeah,

Isaac Colon: 14:47

it's just this style busing that the way clips on is just not a good design, you know?

John Laforme: 14:53

I see so the bus. Can you point to where that can you point? Yeah,

Isaac Colon: 14:57

so these connection points are just not good points on that bus. seen, you know, you have two little thin bars going across in the snap in. Right?

John Laforme: 15:03

Hold that closer to your mic. Yeah, like that ageia.

Isaac Colon: 15:06

So you don't have the bars. But when you dissect that panel, or you see these two little thin bars, yeah, two straight bars real thin. Yep. Just horrible. They don't, they don't trip, they don't do their jobs. The breakers don't react don't react with the heat load. They don't trip when you know. There you go. Right. So

John Laforme: 15:27

here's another here's another picture of one that's installed, obviously. So it's good to look at all the wiring in there. It looks like it's overcrowded. That's, that's probably the way it was installed. It's not a very big area. These boxes are no bigger than this. Yeah.

Isaac Colon: 15:45

I mean, the technology back then didn't you know,

John Laforme: 15:47

I don't think there was any technology back then we're still starting off.

Isaac Colon: 15:50

It was new, you know, everything learned living your learning your mistakes, you know, yeah,

John Laforme: 15:54

live and learn. That's, that's really all you can do. And here's the here's the labeling. A lot of them will have a label that says right on it. zinsco. So I do not remove these covers, is only very rare. I'll pull these covers off. Okay. When I see these installed in like an apartment, or condo, you know, they're typically pretty in pretty good shape, because the weather hasn't gotten to him. But the paint, yeah, remodel, if I can, yeah, if I can, if I can, you know, strategically surgically remove it, the cover, I'll take it off, because I'm not worried about these breakers fallen off because the like I said, it's on the inside of the house. And it's not just beat up from all the weather sun and all these other ones they've been outside and been banged up, you know, messed with, who knows how many times so I don't take those covers off. And going back to the statblock. I definitely do not take these covers off. wires off. It's hard. Yeah, it's unsafe to take this cover off, because you got to lift it up and you got to push it up, which is where the right with a meter posts are.

Isaac Colon: 16:58

Where these connection points are, right? Yeah, you're getting close to those wires. And if

John Laforme: 17:02

somebody already pushed that up a whole bunch of times and we're out these cables and you touch that arc flash time. What do you got your sunglasses on?

Isaac Colon: 17:09

We call it a selfie in a selfie? You're gonna you're gonna get a selfie taken?

John Laforme: 17:15

Was it really bright light.

Isaac Colon: 17:18

I had a one time I was in a wheelchair and high res building is when I was working for a company named Cornell electric. One of the companies that used to work with me a lot and actually Bobby Flon was my foreman. When we used to work together, I used to be his right hand side man, right on on all his big jobs. And I mean, I always knew John, um, if one was capable of doing good jobs, jobs, and I was always his right hand person on these big jobs or whenever I was available. Yeah. But I was I was in a building and sure enough, I was trying to pull out the fish tape that they were feeding into me, right. And when I was pulling out the fish tape is just a whipped you know, when you're pulling it out? It has a little sling. Yeah. And it touched across the phases in the whole building and a 400 at bussing. And that was far away, but it just won't walk across the bus. Oh,

John Laforme: 18:13

no, she,

Isaac Colon: 18:15

I knocked on the whole building. Oh, wow. I've done the whole building a new they just aren't the lower my whole face like boom. So that's the fish tape. Bleep gone. It was gone.

John Laforme: 18:28

And what's that fish tape made of?

Isaac Colon: 18:29

Steel? steel. Steel. So I remember my boss gave me a selfie taking. Like, yeah. Laughing like, whatever.

John Laforme: 18:40

Yeah, it's like you've just, you've just graduated now, your official electrician, you made your first mistake.

Isaac Colon: 18:48

The one thing I don't like is, you know, when you're on the field, people tell you, the power is off and whatnot. I still do. You can't

John Laforme: 18:54

listen to that again. You know, you can't eat that. It's just as just you not being a smart person. If you're going to take someone's advice. First of all, they don't they're not even electricians. And they're telling you the powers off. Come on, man. So

Isaac Colon: 19:06

happened to me one time my own boss told me with the powers off and we're doing demo and in the warehouse. It's all dead. Everything's dead. So they're in 10 foot ladder. My linemen you know trying to cut the wires and Oh, lineman gone. Had a big ol hole in center of eight will seem white for like a couple minutes. We mean the linemen of my tools. Others oh the cutters.

John Laforme: 19:32

Well you meant a person No, no

Isaac Colon: 19:34

my linemen cutter when I was cutting the wire to demo he blew up in my face it left the big ol hole like the lightning blades are like this when they cut and you open had a big ol couple holes from where the wires

John Laforme: 19:49

you save it and put it on your wall?

Isaac Colon: 19:50

No I was I was really I was I was really like probably like eighth year and doing electrical so I was doing doing it for eight years but I remember that was mad because he was up on the ladder.

John Laforme: 20:02

Now, you know, check everything. Check

Isaac Colon: 20:05

it now. I don't trust anybody, never less than 100 Right there.

John Laforme: 20:09

It's not worth it. Not worth the risk. Could be Alaska could be last mistake. Yeah, good. Yeah. So anyways, since co another one. So, you know, once again, they're known for breaker issues, right? Yeah,

Isaac Colon: 20:21

they're known for not tripping or not showing a response that they look like they're chipped. People think they're still on or off and they're off, you just gotta reset them correctly, sometimes two to three times, because the components inside just are finicky that we're cheap. Yeah. So

John Laforme: 20:35

let me have one of these. Yeah. Yeah. So a modern day breaker. Yeah. And that's, that's so much easier and smoother.

Isaac Colon: 20:44

And that's a newer style to this arc fault, too, by the way, right. But when you have that's a newer style article break line that well, these this is like the first style arc fault breaker, which they came out with with with a curly fry neutral pigtails. Yeah. So you got to tie this. You got to try. You gotta tie this neutral in to the bus and then grab the neutral from the circuit here. And then you got to line your wire load, too. So you got a bunch of traffic going on here. Yeah, yeah, too much traffic, too many wires. The neutral bus bars are like these this long now. Right? So now they created this, which the neutral is on the busing of the bar. So you don't need to do any of that you just

John Laforme: 21:25

snap in. But that's confusing for us home inspectors. But the

Isaac Colon: 21:28

panel gets to be capable to carry these type breakers though, because you notice you can see them from me show you from the gret where the stab informers here. Yep. And then the neutral stabs in here, the

John Laforme: 21:41

back I see. But you can't see that. No, not once it's installed. That's

Isaac Colon: 21:45

when this gets rid of and then that's when this comes in.

John Laforme: 21:47

So is it gonna look the same as the one with the pigtail on that end? What so if I'm looking at it as a home inspector,

Isaac Colon: 21:54

or you can tell you can't tell this, you see this this arc fault breakers and you don't see the neutral, then you know it's a newer style panel that's capable of okay, adding this type of, well,

John Laforme: 22:04

how do I know I'm looking at a panel that's supposed to have a pigtail and it doesn't? Yeah,

Isaac Colon: 22:09

so that's the thing. This is the older style arc fault breakers with the older panels. And these are the newer ones, which don't require the new so the newer ones are blue. I'm not sure if the newer ones are blue. It's a good question. So what I'm what I'm trying to get at is a shift 15 is a 20. So it could be different.

John Laforme: 22:23

I see. Yeah, I'm just trying to think of how can how can I explain to other home inspectors how to identify if it should or should not have that wire? Is there a label on there in the front that we can read? That might say it

Isaac Colon: 22:35

Oh, you can see right here it says neutral? And the point on there were says that on that one? Oh, doesn't

John Laforme: 22:40

okay. Yeah. There you go. That's what I was. That's what I was looking for an indicator. Yeah. Cool. Does me see that? Yeah. All right. So so it's got to have that indicator on it. I was at a sticker. Is that embedded in there?

Isaac Colon: 22:55

Can't see from here.

John Laforme: 22:58

Not sticker. Okay. Yeah, that can actually come off. Geez. GFCI class a ground fault.

Isaac Colon: 23:09

A 30.

John Laforme: 23:15

That's the old one. Okay. See AFC? One. Yeah, we'll look into that some more, because I try to identify that just by staring at it. It's gonna be a little difficult. Yeah. Because that's the old one. Yeah. I mean, the one thing the old ones. Okay. The so the saying the old moment that requires the pigtail has a sticker saying the neutral? Yeah. Okay. Got it. All right.

Isaac Colon: 23:42

I mean, you gotta remember this picture. tricky stuff. Yeah. When people are looking at these this because the home doesn't have Arkfall doesn't mean I mean, does that mean it's not up to code? Is this how the house was wired? So just not going to have them? Right? I mean, right. I don't recommend putting arc fault breakers in an older style home because it's not wired and configured. So it can work correctly, you know, but it's a dumb code. When the city, if you're going to relocate a panel more than six feet, you got to use the arc fault breakers. But how's that going to work when the wiring is not configured in an old style house and you're trying to put arc fault breakers with a lighting circuit that siding with the refrigerator? Right? Because that's how people wired? Well,

John Laforme: 24:20

I heard this, I heard this story from a guy who had recently had an electrical upgrade. And he like, had AFCI breakers and he had to remove them really has his stuff kept tripping in the half. We'll talk about him in a little while. I

Isaac Colon: 24:33

think I've learned that person to about that. I want all my customers when we're doing new new services, and we got to relocate panels, or they want to rewire houses. I always go through these 10 times in their head so they know that I'm not lying.

John Laforme: 24:48

Because I know you weren't lying. Yeah, it was I know enough about it. Yeah.

Isaac Colon: 24:51

I mean, not just that, but I mean, because customers tend to forget this stuff. And then once I leave all the refrigerators now working, I gotta constantly Go out there and ship this little digital Arkfall thing. What do you guys do wrong and we're gonna it's not what we do.

John Laforme: 25:05

He didn't do anything wrong, everybody, they're just sensitive and then not configured to be in an old house, and

Isaac Colon: 25:11

they're doing his job. So, I would work when you have a blow dryer, right? Constantly blows

John Laforme: 25:18

like it's I call it a nuisance upgrade. It's as dumb as you just got like, just like I mentioned on the other podcast about the oven being a GFCI. Once again, it's just a nuisance upgrade and you're gonna it's gonna be more of a nuisance than anything else. So this so now let's talk about Mr. Bulldog.

Isaac Colon: 25:39

I have one of these right here in front of you. These are always fun to look at. These are always fun to see whether or not you don't even know you could see on and it's off. You know, this horrible breed another horrible Yeah.

John Laforme: 25:48

And literally you push them in the call Bulldog push Matic you simply push that button, and it's supposed to trip it on or off. Yeah. And you may push it and it may come out and it may still be on. Yeah,

Isaac Colon: 26:00

or you may not work and we have to work them off, bang them up a little bit, loosen up the calcium buildup in there is what you're doing. Right. So I think

John Laforme: 26:07

looking at that is the looking at how it looks. That to me looks worse than this. Yeah, it really does. And it's so like prehistoric. I just think of like a really, really old time when this was made. But it wasn't that old. Let's see. What's the history on these things. They were installed 1950s in the 60s. That looks like it's from 1910 to May 1910 technology, it

Isaac Colon: 26:32

says it's often it's actually on, right. Same thing here. It's often it's on. They're all off. But they're all on probably like that one's kind of like hesitating in the middle. Like it's I'm there but I'm not there.

John Laforme: 26:45

I see the indicator. Yeah, it's like halfway there.

Isaac Colon: 26:48

See? Ya. It's confusing. And

John Laforme: 26:51

you see the difference of a panel that's outside, it's all the dust and dirt and the elements get in there and just make it worse. That's probably why they fail.

Isaac Colon: 26:59

Moisture, calcium buildup. Best way to tell people panels are recommended to be changed out every 15 to 20 years, you know, mean?

John Laforme: 27:06

And this is a replacement one. That's a replacement,

Isaac Colon: 27:10

and those things are expensive.

John Laforme: 27:12

When you say expensive, what do you mean? Like 10 10,200? Like,

Isaac Colon: 27:16

a regular breaker will cost probably five bucks. 10 bucks, Max, you know, yeah, probably one of those refurbished, like in a package brand new probably like 50 bucks. 40 bucks. That's, that's zinsco ones when you're buying these 40 bucks. 30 bucks, and you see all day and they're they're junk, you know, but they're a company. This is the aftermarket company right here. You can tell Yeah, color after the color. You can see it here. But these are all original, but still, they're just junk.

John Laforme: 27:45

Yep. So I'm going to take this and I'm going to have it stuffed. I'm going to hang it on my wall. For sure. So I'm not sure if we're gonna bronze it somebody on my I posted a little quick YouTube video a short last night about hey, I'm gonna dissect this thing and have it stuffed. If someone's like, Yeah, you should bronze it like the old the old baby shoes back in the day.

Isaac Colon: 28:07

From your mirrors are driving.

John Laforme: 28:11

But anyway, so here's here's a cleaner looking.

Isaac Colon: 28:14

Yeah, that one's actually you can see that it's off. It's on.

John Laforme: 28:17

Yeah, maybe that was on the inside of a house that looks really clean. So that might have been on the inside of a house or garage or something. So it's not getting beat up by the weather. So

Isaac Colon: 28:27

and then you have the old school old school class fuses or Yes,

John Laforme: 28:31

sir. So very old school villas and on these and how how not safe they are nightmares.

Isaac Colon: 28:36

They are. Yeah, I've worked on these quite a bit. It's kind of hard. Hard to find these fuses at times. matter that all the pieces, stock them up Home Depot and stuff, Lowe's, the shortage is getting smaller and smaller and these but it's dangerous on these because if someone doesn't know what they're doing, and they don't connect the polarities, right. And you have, right converting it the other way. reverse polarity like you were saying, Well, what's happened to me is when I'm taking these fuses off, and I'm grabbing this and I touched the metals, I'm spinning it. Well guess what? I'm getting shocked. You're grounding yourself. I'm getting shocked because it's reverse polarity. So this is not supposed to be hot. When I'm pitching. It's supposed to be the hot point. So that's supposed to be the hot this is supposed to be the neutral, right? People do reverse. This is the hot. Which one I'm spinning and I'm touching. I get shocked instead of right when you spin it. It makes contact powers done. You're safe. But I've seen that before many times when I'm spinning on my own luck. I'm like dangerous. Dangerous. Yeah. They're dangerous. Yeah. I don't really like these too much.

John Laforme: 29:45

Yeah, that's what I was actually my last podcast I mentioned to you. I was using one of these and I went up to go near it and touch the box. It was energized and I think started glowing like a foot away. I'm like, Oh, I'm not going near that. The whole thing. is a slight so that's what I was. I have a video on that I'm going to send it to you. Okay? I had I had an assistant with me that day and I go hey, videotape this

Isaac Colon: 30:06

is you know, I have the video with my friend of the GFCI brick with the blow dryer. Oh, I'm gonna look for it. Yeah, send that to me send it to you. So you can see we throw it into water and you're the and all he did was grab his screwdriver and touch the ground while he was holding the cord. He tripped. Client screwdriver. Just like that claim screwdriver, we touch the ground while he was still running active and pass a tripped. Wow, this needs the idea of a ground you know, something? Like a transformer. Yeah, Transformers. And when you're doing you're doing the phases, sometimes it just needs ID round to get that other leg out. That's all.

John Laforme: 30:41

So let's, let's tell homeowners what it costs now to upgrade something like this with with different scenarios. So just go through what you typically find and typical price. So they have an understanding of typical

Isaac Colon: 30:53

price well back then prices were lot cheaper obviously with you know, COVID and and material, and now they're requiring surge protectors to people want to do with permits. Surge protectors are very expensive, like $75. So all these parts and components are adding up.

John Laforme: 31:07

But do you recommend using a permit to do electrical?

Isaac Colon: 31:11

It depends on the customer, you know, I mean, we always still do things to code. Regardless, we're not going to Nick neck corner and not put one brown rod because we're trying to save some money. It's not getting done by coating. I mean, we probably won't put on a panel for not doing it by code as a surge protector, because they're not really effective here in California. And those are more like in the areas where the snowing they have storms like that a lot of which is modern over like where East Coast, East Coast and those places. That's where That's where they have Matt, that's where they're known to have that stuff, but they're pushing it on us to now. So it is what is I say start? Yeah, I have one on mine. You do? Because we did it backwards? I mean, it does work a little bit. But I mean, we don't have no storms or anything like that crazier, you know, right? So when

John Laforme: 31:56

you think of a cost to just replace this at the same spot of the same location,

Isaac Colon: 32:01

if it's if it's surface mounted prices nowadays are between 45 and five, for a panel. For three seats in the mall, the wall does cost a bit more labor and time for us

John Laforme: 32:11

to break all that even if you go up in size, same price or as far as when you like 100 M or if you take 100 amp off what do they want to go to? 200? In the same spot?

Isaac Colon: 32:20

Same spot? Yes. So the price is like, like I was saying between like 45 to 5000. Okay. Usually I always recommend people to go to $200 or whatever they go go home. It's the price differences couple $100 Makes

John Laforme: 32:32

sense. Yeah. Yeah, it's just, it's it's practical. I mean, it makes sense. So okay, so

Isaac Colon: 32:38

those are some of the things people need to be aware of, you know, when it's in the wall, you don't have to pull it off the wall, create damage and stucco and create an extra cost, you can surface mount it on the side and save the cost of the stucco and the panel. Now there is some cities that don't allow that, although it is code, which is dumb, and it's legal. But I always check with cities to see if they allow that or they don't only one time I got hit hard once on that and it was in where was that ad what city was that? The Sousa AZUZ I remember, we we did an ad on Azusa, and we did it. And that guy was just well, you know, inspectors, they all have their, their their final say, and they're hot headed from one job for another. You're gonna check it out and you. And that's what he did. He took it on one. He was like, Oh, you got to demote that whole panel and put a junction box we're like, why it's legal. I don't like it. You got to put a junction box, you should know that. It's gonna go what's legal, it's cold. We can do it this way. And he just did an answer. And then he looked at our riser. Oh, the risers too high. It's 36 inches. It's cold, like everywhere. DWP Edison, Anaheim, Pasadena power district they have that's like almost standard. No, drop it down four inches. I wanted to add a 32 inches or something. I'm like, we're like what?

John Laforme: 33:57

I can do that. What he did, he can get away with that.

Isaac Colon: 34:00

He did. What can we do? We're just like, Okay, we'll do that. He left. We looked at other properties and other houses are all 3636 36 And I looked at the homeowner I'm like, he's like, I don't know. I go. Well, you know what, we'll do it. It is what it is not right. I

John Laforme: 34:16

mean, a dick. Yeah. It's been really hectic. Don't be Richard. Yeah. That's relative, Karen. Yeah. I'm sure that's what you meant.

Isaac Colon: 34:30

And, you know, when you're dealing with home inspectors, I never argue with them. I never say anything. I'd be building inspectors. Yes. Safety. Oh, yeah. building inspectors. I never argue with them. When they come I just show him the paperwork. And I don't see anything. I let them do the talking and what I'm hanging themselves. Yeah, I'll let him save time you open up the panel. You see this? I'll see that. Did you do anything else? Nope. Bare minimum. I don't do much information smart, smart. I don't want to open up any kind of worms with them, yeah, you're looking

John Laforme: 35:01

at something else and then anyway, that's not on here. And then that's the thing, but you know, just once again to reiterate to homeowners and homebuyers not having a permit doesn't mean it's wrong. Yeah, that depends on who you hire. So if you just go on for the cheapest guy, which is not a good idea when it comes to something to serious about your house this important just remember there's no big brother overseeing what they're doing. So if you don't know what they're doing, they're going to do what they want to do. And they may not dot their i's and cross their T's with what they're supposed to be putting in.

Isaac Colon: 35:39

Is the only time I really encourage customers to do panel upgrades with a permit is when I know they have the old school three wires coming in from the city it's like it's you gotta just change do that with the permit we can do it without a permanent button one the wires are old yeah we started touching on the plastic and all had these are falling apart

John Laforme: 36:00

you know that Burbank upgraded my wire to a bigger size see? So they send that alignment came in those guys were awesome. They came in knock that thing out. Let's redo it

Isaac Colon: 36:10

or you know when I see a newer style cable coming in, then I'll tell them you don't have to do with a permit. It's up to you. You know at the

John Laforme: 36:17

DWP believes in go bigger go home so whenever they change something they always go bigger. So smart thinking ahead. Yeah, so I got all new wire around the pole. Let's see all the way to the house. I'm super happy with everything so I got all brand new wire so it's awesome not not all my shorts not on my branch circuits are new. We'll get to that. Okay, yeah, I have sweat a lot of a lot of the old stuff we took out there's still some left I know this I know there's other areas but what you guys had to deal with jority of its outdoor Yeah. Which is good. Yeah, majority of is so challenger brand cyclebar challengers because challengers, is kind of a gray area and I think I can say that's challenger

Isaac Colon: 36:58

now Hmm. Eaton. Eaton is challengers. Yeah,

John Laforme: 37:01

so on a residential let's talk about residential for I know you have experienced with that on on a commercial to so as far as residential goes, you know, years ago, I was at a CREIA meeting, which is California real estate inspection Association, which is where I'm certified. And you know, people talking about challenges and they have breaker issues. So my understanding is the recommendation is to upgrade the breakers the box should be okay. Or am I hearing that wrong? What's your opinion on that?

Isaac Colon: 37:34

My opinion on that is it all depends on the panel model it is you know, okay. So certainly, if it is one of the certain models and you can just upgrade the breakers down you're able to do it like there's a company called you a lot of people probably even heard of it. It's called Black Label brothers. They're a panel company that was based in Los Angeles they all they made was just panel boards for the outside service not panel boards and inside just outside just outside but didn't make any breakers and all they made were just panelboards so that's a company that's been out and insurances aren't black labeling those companies because they never had any fire issues but back then that company was designing panels so that people can interact and change are whatever breaker they wanted to use on the main service and put whatever they want inside meaning if they wanted to put that Black Label service panel and then get a Federal Pacific breaker and put a Federal Pacific sub panel inside apartments or do push nomadic right and then do push nomadic you know, so that's what they would do, but I'm sorry, it's bleak men brothers. Well

John Laforme: 38:49

Blake, man,

Isaac Colon: 38:50

I don't have my coffee today man.

John Laforme: 38:52

Blakeman.

Isaac Colon: 38:53

Yeah Blake and then man one word. Oh, one word. Yeah. Bleak man.

John Laforme: 38:57

And then brother Lakeman. It's probably called Blakeman panels. Yep.

Isaac Colon: 39:02

Now you'll find it there. There you go. See him? That's the labels those labels right there.

John Laforme: 39:09

I see. The infamous wings. Yeah. Blakeman brothers why

Isaac Colon: 39:13

this company all they did were meter sections that's it. So this company made meter sections and then after that people in your put whatever internals they wanted inside of them to make them work with like, Federal Pacific breaker style,

John Laforme: 39:28

you know which one you want? Is that we saying?

Isaac Colon: 39:31

No. So these guys would just make the service panels.

John Laforme: 39:34

One one would accommodate this breaker and one would accommodate a different one or is that we say so they

Isaac Colon: 39:39

made their their panel boards so that anybody can enter us whatever style breaker to

John Laforme: 39:46

use this like a universal box kinda universal. Oh,

Isaac Colon: 39:50

that's when we get into series reading. mean by series reading now. But back then series reading wasn't around. And it was a series writing. Tell us about The series we need is pretty much the body of the breaker is matching with the internals of the sub panel of the inside, you know, series reading, okay, so these guys designed their panels so that anybody can put you know, like if we buy a Siemens panel you only want to use Siemens breaker you're not going to put square d breaker and they're gonna sit right fit right

John Laforme: 40:24

that was my next question I was gonna bring up so he's got a chain interchangeable breakers. Yeah,

Isaac Colon: 40:28

these guys designed these panels so that people can use either Federal Pacific square d Murray back then which is Siemens now. Yeah, but some cities allow you to still upgrade just a step panels and leave these the main service outs and just change the breaker so it can match with the series really? So

John Laforme: 40:46

was there a problem doing this? Or is this just problems?

Isaac Colon: 40:51

No fires?

John Laforme: 40:52

Okay, so if I see this, it's okay. It's

Isaac Colon: 40:55

okay. Have a panel. There's no issues. They don't have fires. It's just a discontinued 1969 1970s when they stopped. Yeah, they've been around for a while and they were based here out of Los Angeles.

John Laforme: 41:08

I'm gonna save this.

Isaac Colon: 41:10

Yeah. You're gonna see a lot of those now that I'm telling you, you'll see more apartment buildings. If you get home inspection on do you do commercial apartments? Yeah. Okay,

John Laforme: 41:25

on occasion. I don't do a ton of them. Okay, I do get them here and there. And I have not come across these yet. No, I don't recall. Seeing anything like that. They

Isaac Colon: 41:34

look like a regular Siemens panel. Yeah, it's the labeling. I always look at very universal. So

John Laforme: 41:43

there is. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit more about interchangeable breakers. Okay, because that's something I do look for when I'm looking inside panels. And I don't have a catalogue of which one is white? Which one's right, which one's wrong? And I'm not going to go that deep into it with my customers. Right? If I see a Siemens panel and I see an aftermarket breaker I'm gonna look you know, you got you got you got a different manufacturer breakers in here. They may not be compatible. Yeah. I don't know if they are or not have electrician, let you know if they are. And if they aren't, they can replace it. And you

Isaac Colon: 42:19

can usually see it to yourself when you're spotting it because the outer part of the body frame never sits right. The right or something like

John Laforme: 42:29

Yeah, yeah. Or yeah, yeah, there are some visual indicators just by you know, that looks off. Sometimes I'll see like a row of breakers loose. Nightmares. Yeah. And I'm like, why is that seated? I would give a little push.

Isaac Colon: 42:44

That's how they said they birdie grab their barrel? Yeah, for the cert fires. Chunking.

John Laforme: 42:49

Yeah, just junk. So I call that out. Because that's too loose for me. I wouldn't want to not point that out to a customer. So yeah, so

Isaac Colon: 42:57

the one thing I do get on home inspections, a lot of because that we get a lot of emails from companies and realtors that, you know, they want us to give them a quote, and what is your home inspection report? And we're like, oh, yeah, send it over. One thing that I do notice that home inspectors do do is they say the panel needs to be updated, and it doesn't have arc fault breakers. I'm like, it's it doesn't need to have arc fault breakers and it's the whole house is going to be rewired. And so there's some misleading information on some time sometimes on that with home inspectors. And that's

John Laforme: 43:29

just that's just a home inspector who doesn't know yet. Yeah, it doesn't understand. So let's click on glad you brought that up. That's a good point. So you know, when I think it was 2014 when arc fault when it went into code and 16 or something like that, yeah. So the safe way to look at that home inspectors if you're listening How old is this house you're looking at? Number one, how old is that panel? And is there any record or does that panel look like it was just upgraded now if that panel was just upgraded Yes, it should have arc fault No,

Isaac Colon: 44:06

no no no see? That's the part where people get confused now when you relocate the panel like we did with you any service panel within six feet then yes, we have to use arc fault breakers but if we're just going to upgrade a service like for like same location it doesn't need arc fault breakers

John Laforme: 44:23

no shit yeah.

Isaac Colon: 44:25

Wow. Oh, that's that's where

John Laforme: 44:28

the that's I have not had that explained to me before I say

Isaac Colon: 44:31

that a lot. And it's like no, it's not that and you know, is the scare.

John Laforme: 44:35

So replacement for replacement arc fault breakers you don't need arc fault no you just replacing the panel like like for lights don't

Isaac Colon: 44:43

need a surge protector.

John Laforme: 44:44

Wow. Okay, that doesn't make sense to me, but I get it. That doesn't make sense to me.

Isaac Colon: 44:50

It's only when you relocate a panel more than six feet you that's required to do Arkfall

John Laforme: 44:54

brain relocating more than six feet or new

Isaac Colon: 44:57

rewire of a new home New Construction, then yes, it needs arc fault breakers. Yes. Wow. So newer style home

John Laforme: 45:06

like for like, so this, this is good information. Thank you. But it creates more questions. That's fine. So I'm on the I'm on the job. I see, well, it looks like they just replace the box. I don't see AFCIs. So by the way, when I report AFCIs, whether they're missing or they're not connected or whatever, I simply say, look, non standard electrical practices, have electrician take a look to see if this box requires this. Right. Was this upgrade? It's all in the wording. Yeah, I'm not saying you have to have AFCI breakers. I'm saying it's a typically a normal part of an upgrade, to have AFCI installed after 2014. So that's how I that's how I report it. Right. And I think sometimes other inspectors who just may not know yet, that could be new, it could be a new inspector who just hasn't really had to deal with this a lot. So they don't have a lot of experience writing it up. And they may or may not have stumbled on this before. So it happens. You know, I was new once I went through a lot of shit like that, too. They sorted i right. And a lot of things. Yeah. So it's just, we're here to learn? No, we're just here to talk. I'm not here to you know, generalize, everybody has not knowing this, but I'm sure a lot of guys have are about to have come across this and have to find a way to write it up. So I read it up as look, it looks a little non standard to me are substandard install, my recommendation is to have electrician determine if it needs to be there or not. But we don't know if that panel was just installed. We don't know what was there before. So I can't answer those questions for the customer. So I'm better off saying it the way I say it and reporting it the way I report it. Because I don't know what they just took off of there. Yeah, I mean, the seller doesn't know,

Isaac Colon: 46:58

I've run into some crazy ones where we had a better panel. And it was a surface mounted, gave him a regular quote, you know, I looked at it and I opened it up seemed fine. Okay? Come to find out these guys, these jokers, wherever they were, had a fuse system like this before. And all they did was surface, mount that over the fuse system and push the wires through. So when we turn off that pen off the wall, you found that we found this big ol opening stuff like this inside, and we're like, whoa, we can't just surface mount this back again. Now we have to open up the Zwaan to this right. But that's those are all surprises you don't see.

John Laforme: 47:40

Right? Yeah, well, any, any any, anytime you got to open up something on a wall, it's a can of worms.

Isaac Colon: 47:46

And that's where we're sometimes you know, cuz that customer was cool. And understanding, you know, and some

John Laforme: 47:51

people are going to be rational. Some people Oh, you said this? You know, Karen, and Richard, Karen and Richard. I just think Karen should cover all of them. I don't think Richard is good enough. I think it should just be carrying across the board myself. But anyway. So yeah, that's an interesting news about the AFC eyes. Now I've been I've been on jobs where this was a big house to remember this one job was really big house 200 amp service and their big tall one like I got, and I pull the cover off. And all the pigtails are cut all the way down. And I said, so I said to my customer, hey, you might want to come take a look at this, because it's easy just to look at and me trying to explain it later. So yeah, all those pigtails have been cut. But I'm gonna tell you why they're probably cut. Because they're probably becoming a nuisance. And I tell them that these are known to be nuisance problems. And they probably were required to install them by code. And then as soon as the guy left, that would have had to reset everything a couple of times a week or something like that, or maybe once a day. And so they said, Hey, come back here and just cut all these damn white wires for me, because that's what's causing all these problems. So when you install my sub panel, and my main panel, I knew the image that you had to put AFCI zoom because we relocated panels. So that that goes what you just said about about me not knowing that if the panels move more than six feet, and you have to add AFCS Yeah, so fast. Isn't

Isaac Colon: 49:27

isn't too tough on that on that code, but most other cities are

John Laforme: 49:32

right. So after you guys were done within a couple of days, my frigerator trip Yeah, I can imagine. So the wife's like, John, I'm gonna catch it on time. Yeah, yeah, I think it just happened. Probably overnight, it happened or whatever. So the next morning we noticed that so I look Sure enough, it's tripped. I just reset it but my panel is right next to the fridge so it's all cool. I just walked right up the hallway and then it happened to but then it happened again, with one of the bathrooms and In the living room, it happened with the Wi Fi and I'm like, okay, that's because and then I remembered our conversation, John, we're gonna get these things in. You're not gonna like them, but it's gonna pass code and then you're gonna, then we're going to come back and we're going to put out the regular ones back in and you did and you kept your word you came back and you replaced those with regular breakers and everything's now I'm happy.

Isaac Colon: 50:21

I always warn customers when we're doing to Yeah, we're gonna relocate, I make sure I bring up those nightmares. Detailed front and back as many different ways in time so they can say that I don't remember you telling me that because that's what the obviously you

John Laforme: 50:34

got to make sure you put it in writing. Nevermind the verbal you know, when you want to make it stick, you put it in writing? Yeah.

Isaac Colon: 50:41

But even then somebody new contract, they probably won't understand it so that you have to physically kind of tell them, you know, yeah, shows, tell him

John Laforme: 50:48

to call me and I'll clear it up for him real quick. I'll make a video for it. Don't bother this guy. But you're AFCI just watch this video. Just watch this video and a male makes sense, because it happened to me. And now we took them out and I haven't had anything. None. Zero. So that's really good information about the Arkfall that's good. I'm gonna I'm gonna dig into that a little more later. Try to figure more out on that. And anything else you want to mention about these unsafe panels?

Isaac Colon: 51:17

Um, these not really,

John Laforme: 51:20

I say get rid of all of them. Yeah,

Isaac Colon: 51:22

they're just, it's bad. They're just, you know, back construction on how they manufactured them. It's it happens. You know, it happens like vehicles, they make vehicles and they're not.

John Laforme: 51:33

That's called recalls. There's been recalls in some things. I think these had a recall on them. It is statblocks for Pacific.

Isaac Colon: 51:39

It did, but they just banded them after that are like no, they're not cutting it. Yeah, I wonder how much they had to pay out a lot.

John Laforme: 51:47

For I put them out of business. I mean, I don't wish that on anybody going out of business but making a faulty product and you know, it's not good. Showing up to it. Burning down houses. Or houses. So anyways, if you need electrical upgrades you do on electric panels. Yeah. commercial, commercial. And oh, by the way, Challenger, we talked about the residential side. Let's real quick talk about the commercial side of Challenger. Okay, so is the commercial side of Challenger panels. Are they tend to be problematic or not? Is that just a residential issue? More

Isaac Colon: 52:23

than residential issue? Okay, more more. The commercial style panels are bolt on. Breakers. Okay, real good connection. You're a little bit more heavy duty here.

John Laforme: 52:33

Okay. Good to know.

Isaac Colon: 52:35

But there's still problems there too. If people don't make the connections right. You know, I mean, sure. It's always some nightmares of things still, you know,

John Laforme: 52:45

who's installing it? So once again, it goes down to that yeah, it does. And and I'm sure you have to pull permits to do anything commercial.

Isaac Colon: 52:53

Oh, yeah. For the most part sometimes we don't like like I tell homeowners when I come do residential. It's totally up to them. Do you want to do it or not? It's safe on 90% of the people don't because they don't want to deal with the headaches nightmare is a timeframe What if you what if an inspector rolls up on you and you're working on a job and there's no permit what do you what happens to you when we just pull a permit? They don't they don't find you or anything or tap into those before him Redondo this is going on your permanent record happens before and Redondo like this girl was wanting to do and she wanted to see the money it's just real cool girl with with her husband as real easy going. But cheating along with her neighbor. The neighbor thought was the neighbor and the neighbor called inspector over made him come over to the house showed him in the backyard that we were doing the swing race during the upgrade, he walked out the house knocked on her door and that's our big old logo van trucks in front of her house you know so

John Laforme: 53:52

what's going on guys? They changing the batteries in your remote control.

Isaac Colon: 53:57

Are you are you changing the back and she was like yeah, we are upgrading a wall I don't see a permit opened up in my side of the city, you know on my side. So you need to do a permit if you're going to be doing that panel. Blah, blah, blah. And that's it.

John Laforme: 54:12

Guess what? Now she has a headache. Yeah, well, I'm trying to avoid the headache that she has one

Isaac Colon: 54:16

but it was it was simple though because right when she told me that I got on the phone editor editor got on the internet pulled the put the permit next day we had it the following day. We call inspection we're

John Laforme: 54:27

done. Ah sweet. So it wasn't that bad after I just cost a little more money. That's why I told

Isaac Colon: 54:31

her you can try to you can try to do it. Worst case scenario. They're just going to make us build a permit. It's not going to be a big deal. It's not gonna hold the project down. The thing is she had a big issue. She had a short and half her house was and working. Right so she needed to get it done ASAP.

John Laforme: 54:45

Got it. Got it. Okay, so, alright, cool. So yeah, permits, like I said, there's no big brother without it. So you gotta hope you're hiring a reputable company. And once again, always check your contractors make sure they're licensed. Yeah. Make sure they add the license they're using is their name.

Isaac Colon: 55:04

And just because you do like a service upgrade without a permit doesn't mean the insurance won't cover you. Insurance is mainly focus on and pay attention on. Okay, you have a fire electrical. Oh, looks like the panel has been upgraded. Okay. Yeah. All right. So I'll pull permits, right? No, they're licensed, licensed contractor to the work. Yeah, he actually we did we did get a license contract. You have proof? Here's the proof. The invoice Okay, they'll still cover you because a licensed contractor did the work just because we didn't permit assuming these use those to handpan permit and licensed contractor.

John Laforme: 55:37

See? Okay, good. Yeah.