Are landlords able to leave stab lok breakers in a rental?
The house I’m renting has a very old breaker panel, which is a federal pacific stab-lok panel. I have run my air compressor a number of times without the breaker tripping, then, one day it finally did trip. It was then that I found out that my garage is on the same 15 amp breaker as the dining room and the refrigerator. At that point I wondered why it hadn’t tripped before. That was when I did some research into it and found out those types were recalled in 1985 because they are a fire hazard because of the bus bar, plus the tendency for them to fail to trip when overloaded.
Are these something that could still be grandfathered in on a house? Or are they supposed to be replaced for rentals in most states?
babyboomer10012021-03-24T18:14:40Z
The landlord can delay replacing for as long as he wants. Recalls are up to the owner to decide. Learn what you can and cannot run at the same time. I had to learn through trial & error when we added to our house. A larger panel - years ago, was $10k, so we decided to stick with what we had. We just can't operate the vacuum in the outlet most convenient in the kitchen AND the dishwater AND the washing machine at the same time.
Hope you have renters insurance so you can replace your stuff. So when your place burns (which from your story sounds like it could.) You'll be able to replace your stuff. Course if your insurance company finds out there's a federal firebox in your apartment they won't give you a policy or cancel it. That's usually what causes the replacement most insurance companies won't give a policy to a owner with a federal box in it.
where you are makes a huge difference. if your community has building permit review, or an occupancy certificate program, ask them. be warned -- if landlord is order to replace the breaker box, you may have to move on sudden notice.
I googled and googled and google, and was unable to find anything saying they must be replaced. I did find many recommendations and strong suggestions that they should be replaced, but nothing about any law anywhere that says they have to be.
In most cases, if something was legal when it was installed or built in a house, it stays legal until work requiring a permit is done and then the new work must meet code to pass inspection and sometimes old stuff has to be changed to meet the new code. Rental houses are no different in that respect than houses the owners live in. Sometimes, in multi-unit buildings, there are measures called for that aren't called for in single-family homes.
I'd say that if you have a concern then the thing to do is raise it with your landlord.