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How about Murray?

That panel is a Murray in the 2nd pic.

I, of all people here, have. Coming soon to an ECN Post Near you...

Ian A.

I understand we have the "Z-Virus" around here in CA so bad..., but we've no shortage of FPE junk either, which if I recall correctly, comes from the crown jewel of the Garden State... Newark

PS. Wadsworth and Frank Adam are rare breeds here though...

Turns out my father worked at Federal Pacific in Newark NJ way back in the early 50's as an accountant. He was building our house back then, and he used FPE panels for subpanels. One was a stab-lok panel, which has since been replaced by a Square D. I doubt that my father knew of any issues with stab-loks back then, as he wanted quality stuff for his house.

The meter pedestal that serves the townhouse I own is made by Zinsco (in Fredericksburg, VA). It's in the utility right-of-way and has electric meters for 5 houses in it. I'm pretty sure it's the power company's problem. They (Dominion Power) disclaimed any responsibility for it but after I got off the phone with them telling them that many of those meter pedestals/enclosures are in poor condition with missing lids and locks etc. which could allow contact to the buss bars for someone who wasn't careful, they came by and fixed all of them.

Or maybe that was just a total coincidence and they were going to do it anyway..

Zinsco was quite popular in Florida as well. Alot of houses near where I lived had these installed, including Zinsco MAIN discos and meter enclosures.

Brian:

Where do you live in Fred Vegas? I live in the Salem Fields area and commute to Lorton.

My best friend is an operations manager for Dominion and he has told me about those Zinsco pedestals. I saw them years ago in Springfield, but VEPCO at the time took most of them out.

If they are giving you a hard time, let me know and I can pull a few strings. PM me over at Tech Talk if interested.

Back to the matter at hand, we rarely see FPE or Zinsco around here. I used to work for a service company and we were required to keep basically every size and brand of breakers on the truck. I can honestly say that in four years, I only encounterd a dozen Zinsco panels but plenty of FPE's. Seems like most are gone now.

I do have a question about the first pic though. Does the mast go inside the wall for the right-hand service? That would never fly around here, not to mention a flush-mount meter base. An outdoor panel is almost never done unless there's no other choice and still never integrated with the meter base. POCO gives us the meter base; we supply our own panel and the conduit/cable to connect them. They do the upper half (SE cable and drop) or the lower half on underground (conduit). I guess we have it made here.

The first pic is a good example of what California services tend to look like. (minus the extra riser on the roof)

The left being a surface mount, the right being a semi-flush mount (yes, the riser is in the wall, using RMC)

The first time I saw an east coast service, I was kinda shocked as well SE-R cable doesn't happen here in CA,

Have never seen SE cable as being allowed in the PG&E Greenbook.