Paul Duffau

That's a direct quote from a local electrical contractor to me in an email late last week. As he put it,

"you and I are having some difficulty with the FPE panel issue"

and he was exactly right. We are having issues with it. I think they are inherently unsafe. He thinks that they have a history of good service. Recently, I had a streak (a personal worst, if you will) of 5 consecutive houses with a FPE panel. One of the panels was referred to the contractor I'm quoting.

I am one of the inspectors in my area that will actually call out these panels as a safety hazard - not all do. Until now, I have not recommended replacement but rather that the panels be evaluated by a licensed and qualified electrical contractor for system safety and potential cost of replacement. I also brief my clients on why I am making that call so that they don't get surprised later. I try to make sure that the issue is presented in a factual manner - one inspector was reported to have told a client that "that Stab-Lok breaker will kill you." That's a mite more emotional (and a lot less professional) than I prefer to be.

Normally, it's enough to refer to the electrical contractor. Most of the contractors agree with me on the issue - they are a fire hazard. Most, unfortunately, is not all and the Realtors tend to side with the "professional" - and, like most people, they go to the specialist that they trust.

The problem that arises, then, is what happens when the specialist, in this case the electrician, is not up-to-date on his information, or has been given inaccurate information from another source.

"I also discussed the FPE issue with an attorney who was actually looking at a house with an FPE panel. He stated that for me to say negative things about the FPE would be using hearsay evidence, as there is not sufficient documentation to establish it as fact. He also advised that if I negatively influenced the potential buyer that I could be responsible for the lost sale."

In other words, the lawyer intimidated him - hard to believe that a lawyer would do that, huh? He accepted the lawyer's interpretation without questioning the source of his authority to make engineering assessments based on the available evidence. The evidence, gathered by Dr. Jess Aronstein, is pretty clear. The Stab-Lok breakers in the FPE panels are subject to very high failure rates. At a modest overload (135% of rating) switches that had never been touched (never mechanically switched) were energized on both poles. These failed 25% of the time, followed by a lockup that meant the switch would never trip in the future at any overload. Once these switches had been flipped on and off (mechanically energized), failures increased to 36%! Worse, when individual poles on these switches were energized under the same conditions, 51% of the "virgin" switches failed, and for switches that had been mechanically energized, a whopping 65% of them failed! That's scientific evidence, not hearsay. These results were from the Wright-Malta study done for the Consumer Products Safety Commission in 1983 and widely disseminated on the internet.

Dr. Aronstein did further testing in 2007 with similar results. Unlike wine, these breakers are not getting better with age.

Add to that the fact that in 2005, the New Jersey Supreme Court found FPE guilty of violating that state's Consumer Fraud Act and permitted qualified plaintiffs to collect up to triple damages through a class action. Specially, they found the FPE, in order to gain a United Laboratory listing necessary to permit the breakers for use under the guidelines of the National Electrical Code, falsified their test results over a period of ten years. Without that UL listing, it is likely that these breakers would never have been permitted to be installed in residences.

So, the contractor and I are having an issue. I'm pretty near positive that the panels are unsafe. The evidence agrees with me. The New Jersey Supreme Court agrees with me.

We'll get it worked out. The questions are: How quickly? And, will anybody get hurt before it gets worked out?

A devotion to the arts is a signature quality of Moscow, Idaho. The city is divided between the more liberal university students and professors and the somewhat conservative farming community but one area of agreement is the appreciation of myriad forms of art.

The local paper, the Moscow Pullman Daily News, had this article of one of our local artists.

The rural life: Local artist inspired by life in small southern Idaho town

Forrest Gilchrist usually starts a piece of art without knowing what the final product will look like.

"It all has a human element, but there is no predetermined idea," he said. "It's open to interpretation."

The Moscow artist has delved into a variety of art forms over the years, but for his show at Above the Rim Gallery in Moscow, he put together 100 collages that combine book covers and pictures from books, magazines and other discarded media.

He uses brightly colored mistinted paint he gets through his day job at Moscow Building Supply to bring the collages to life and offset black and white images. (read more...)

If you're a jazz fan, Moscow ID has a treat that you really should indulge in at least once, the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival. I know - Idaho. Not where you would expect to find a hotbed of jazz. but there is a long jazz tradition

The University of Idaho sponsors the Lionel Hampton International Jazz Festival every year. The Festival is a major regional highlight. Imagine an environment that has world class jazz musicians sharing the stage with elementary, junior high and high school students.

I've had several childern participate in the competition. The level of commitment that even the youngest bands bring is impressive. Some of the talent that appears among the high schoolers is just awe-inspiring.

But it isn't just a kid's festival. It would be wonderful if it were - but the Festival also attracts the best in the world. It takes a special event to pull in a Bobby McFerrin or any of a dozen other performers that will be in Moscow in a couple of weeks.

The emphasis this year is Latin Jazz. I have to admit, I am not a big jazz fan with one exception. I love latin Jazz - a holdover from a trip to New York 2 decades ago. I missed it last year (no kids in the band) but have already picked up tickets for the shows this time around. The Festival is from 2/25-2/28. For anybody interested in jazz, this is a "you'll regret it if you miss it" type of event.

Stick it on your bucket list.

The title of the post and the question itself probably seem a bit silly. Everybody here on AR is in the same business whether they're a Realtor, Inspector, Mortgage Broker, Stager. Quite often though I see people confuse industry with job. A good example was this last Friday.

I was taken by surprise during one of my inspections Friday, of a Clarkston WA house. I had an exchange with a Realtor from Lewiston ID that went something like this:

Inspector: So, have you been keeping tracks of the changes in the home inspection side of things?

Realtor: No. Why should I pay attention to your industry?

Huh? Since I didn't have a ready answer, I think she had a point. And in my usual way, I thought of all sorts of good answers - hours later. Before I arrived at those answers though, I had to think it through. So now I have an answer, of sorts. Why should you pay attention to my industry? Because we're in the same industry and what affects me affects the Realtor as well.

Washington State is in the process of licensing the home inspectors that work here. This is a fairly large change and, in SE Washington, not well recognized. Washington currently requires inspectors to have Structural Pest Inspector licenses - only three inspectors out of a dozen here carry that license and the others work with a degree of impunity. Clarkston and Pullman are 400 miles from Olympia. In terms of attention, we're pretty well ignored (except the Department of Revenue!)

The changes that are coming though are going to make it more difficult for Realtors to avoid the licensed inspector for their preferred inspector (and please, I am not bashing the Realtor here - the unlicensed inspector is a different story.) Inspectors working in Washington will have to include their license number on the report. Brokers will be looking for those (or should be). Without it, they place themselves in a position of legal jeopardy. There are literally dozens of other things that will be changing.

The Realtors don't know it. And it is completely my fault.

I haven't communicated the changes to them. I keep up with what is happening in the various aspects of the industry. I am always curious as to what is happening in somone else's neck of the woods, what problems are they facing, what can I learn, who can I help? To spend hours with my head in a code book or online reading Russel Ray or Steven L Smith or online journals is second nature and, quite literally, a pleasure. I'm even worse with college basketball.

It's part of my job to help the Realtors by keeping them fully informed of things that can adversely affect them and their clients. Usually, I do that by giving them the best inspection I can (shameless plug here: I'm a pretty good inspector!) but sometimes I can accomplish more good by working with the Realtors than with our clients.

We share the same goal - to help our clients find homes that they will be happy in for as long as they choose to stay there. That's our industry. We all have a part to play in it.

Pullman Inspector Comparison

As you know, the State of Washington just recently established a new regulation that each agency must provide a written policy for referring home inspectors. I thought that the above chart might help in determining the standards you set in the policy.

Obviously my information is complete but you might find that it makes it easier to build your referral list with chart similar to the one above. I have tried to provide accurate information for the other inspectors but I have a few blanks.

Feel free to adapt the above if it is useful. I do ask that you do not alter my information without informing me - not that you can't but please do let me know.

Thanks.

Paul Duffau, National Property Inspections