Original research · Code & safety

The Electrical Panels Insurers Won’t Cover, and How Many Homes Were Built When They Were Installed

Name: US housing units by construction era, 1950–1989 and 1960–1979, by state
Creator: HyreElectrical Research Desk
License: https://www.census.gov/data/developers/about/terms-of-service.html

Carriers decline, inspectors flag and sales fall through over three products — Federal Pacific Stab-Lok panels, Zinsco panels and aluminium branch-circuit wiring. Not one of them was ever recalled. Nobody had published how much of the housing stock sits in their installation era, so we counted it.

Updated September 5, 2026 · Data as of 5 September 2026

Written by HyreElectrical Research Desk Primary-source research and fact checking

67.1M housing units built 1950–1989, the FPE and Zinsco installation era

47.1% of the stock of all 142.3 million US housing units

34.7M housing units built 1960–1979, the window containing the aluminium era

0 recalls of FPE Stab-Lok breakers by the CPSC, then or since

The finding

67,068,006 US housing units — 47.1 per cent of the entire stock — were built between 1950 and 1989, the era in which Federal Pacific Stab-Lok and Zinsco load centres were being installed. A narrower window, the 34,739,491 units built in the 1960s and 1970s, contains the 1965-to-mid-1970s period in which aluminium branch-circuit wiring was going into new houses. These are counts of homes built in those years, not counts of panels or of wire. Nothing in the Census records what is in a panel board, an unknown but large share of these products has already been replaced, and most homes of this age never had any of the three. The finding worth carrying is the mismatch: the private insurance market treats these products as recalled, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission closed its Federal Pacific investigation in 1983 without ever determining that the breakers were unsafe, and without a recall.

Read this before you use any number on this page

The American Community Survey records the decade a housing unit was built. It does not record the brand of the load centre, whether the branch circuits are copper or aluminium, or whether any of it has been replaced since. There is no dataset in the United States that counts installed electrical panels by manufacturer. If there were, this study would not exist.

So the quantity published here is exactly this: the number of housing units still standing that were built during the years these products were being installed. Most of those homes never had a Federal Pacific or a Zinsco panel — the two brands were a minority of a competitive market — and of those that did, an unknown share have been upgraded in the forty to seventy years since. Aluminium branch wiring is narrower still: CPSC puts it in new houses roughly from 1965 to the mid 1970s, which is a slice of one of our decade bands and cannot be separated from it, because the published table has no division finer than ten years.

What the count is good for is bounding the problem and locating it. It says the exposed stock is tens of millions of homes rather than hundreds of thousands, and it says where that stock is concentrated. What it must never be used for is a sentence of the form “X million homes have Federal Pacific panels”. We have not written that sentence and it is not supported by anything below.

Why a construction-era count is the only count available

A homeowner discovers this problem in one of three ways, and all three arrive as a surprise. A home inspector photographs the panel during a sale and writes it up. A carrier’s underwriting system flags the property and the renewal does not come. Or the buyer’s insurer quotes the policy conditional on the panel being replaced before closing, which turns a $2,000–$4,000 electrical job into a condition of the transaction.

In each case the homeowner asks the same two questions — how common is this, and is it actually dangerous — and finds that the first has no published answer at all. Trade associations quote panel counts with no source. Contractor sites quote each other. The federal government, which has investigated the hazard, has never counted the installed base, and the manufacturers that would know are gone: Federal Pacific Electric’s panelboard business was wound down in the early 1980s and Zinsco was absorbed into GTE Sylvania in 1973.

HYRE analysis. With no panel census in existence, the closest honest measure is the housing stock built while these products were on the market — an upper bound on the exposure, published as an upper bound. That is what follows. It is the same reasoning a public-health study uses when it counts homes built before the 1978 lead-paint ban rather than homes with lead paint, and it carries the same weakness: the era is the proxy, not the hazard.

The national stock, by the decade it was built

All 142.3 million US housing units by decade built. The four bands from 1950 to 1989 — the Federal Pacific and Zinsco installation era — are the middle of the bar and 47.1 per cent of the total. US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2023 5-year estimates, table B25034, retrieved 5 September 2026 from the public table-based Summary File. Percentages are HyreElectrical calculations from the published counts.

Of 142,332,876 housing units counted in the 2023 five-year American Community Survey, 67,068,006 were built between 1950 and 1989 (margin of error ±64,313 at 90 per cent confidence — a tenth of one per cent of the estimate, which is as precise as national ACS figures get). That is 47.1 per cent of everything standing.

Inside it, the 1970s are the single largest decade in the American housing stock: 20,484,570 units, more than any decade before or since. That matters here, because the 1970s hold both the peak of Stab-Lok distribution and the tail of the aluminium branch-wiring period. What each of those decades typically had installed in it — service size, wiring method, grounding — is set out in housing age and electrical systems.

Three different products, three different evidence bases

Federal Pacific, Zinsco and Challenger are named in the same sentence by insurers and they are not the same thing. One has a federal safety publication behind it. One has a closed federal investigation that reached no conclusion. One has neither.

Aluminium branch-circuit wiring — the strongest evidence of the three

This is the only one of the three with a current federal safety publication devoted to it. CPSC Publication 516, Repairing Aluminum Wiring (June 2011), states that “a national survey conducted by Franklin Research Institute for CPSC showed that homes built before 1972, and wired with aluminum, are 55 times more likely to have one or more wire connections at outlets reach ‘Fire Hazard Conditions’ than homes wired with copper” — a condition the survey defined as receptacle cover-plate screws reaching 149 °C, sparks emitted, or surrounding material charred.

On dates, CPSC is precise: “Homes built before 1965 are unlikely to have aluminum branch circuit wiring. Electrical cables installed between 1965 and the mid 1970s in new homes, in additions, and as part of rewired/new circuits may contain aluminum wiring.” A mid-1960s copper shortage is the reason it moved from large-appliance circuits to general-purpose 15- and 20-amp circuits.

CPSC recognises exactly three permanent repairs: complete replacement with copper, pigtailing with a COPALUM connector, and the AlumiConn connector. The publication explicitly excludes copper-clad aluminium cable — marked “CU-clad” — from its recommendations, and excludes the larger-gauge aluminium used for service entrances, dryers and ranges, which is still standard and not the subject of any of this.

Federal Pacific Stab-Lok — an investigation that closed without a finding

CPSC opened an investigation into FPE Stab-Lok residential breakers in June 1980 and closed it in 1983. The Commission’s own news release states it closed the matter “because the data currently available to the Commission does not establish that the circuit breakers pose a serious risk of injury to consumers”, and that it did so without making a determination as to the safety of FPE circuit breakers or as to the accuracy of the manufacturer’s position.

The stated reason was money. Staff estimated it would cost several million dollars to gather the necessary data, against a Commission budget of $34 million for the whole of fiscal 1983. The release records that the Commission can reopen the matter if further information warrants. It has not.

HYRE analysis. This is the crux of the page. “Never recalled” and “proven safe” are different statements, and so are “never recalled” and “proven dangerous”. The federal record supports neither of the strong claims made in either direction. Independent laboratory work and civil litigation have gone further than CPSC did, and a homeowner is entitled to weigh that — but a page that tells you the government recalled these panels is telling you something that did not happen.

Zinsco — the thinnest federal record, the same market treatment

Zinsco panels, sold in volume through the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s and later branded GTE Sylvania after the 1973 acquisition, carry no CPSC recall and no CPSC safety publication of their own. The concern described by inspectors is a specific one — breakers whose aluminium bus connection can fail to trip while appearing seated — and it is documented in inspection practice rather than in federal safety literature.

HYRE analysis. Zinsco is the clearest case of the gap this page exists to describe: an underwriting rule with real financial consequences, resting on an evidence base that the federal government has never assessed either way.

What “recalled” means in an underwriting guide

One of the carrier documents quoted below lists as ineligible any panel “subject to a recall”, in the same breath as Federal Pacific and Zinsco. Neither product was ever the subject of a CPSC recall. The FPE investigation closed in 1983 with no determination; Zinsco was never the subject of a federal investigation at all.

HYRE analysis. That is not necessarily an unreasonable underwriting position. An insurer is pricing a loss distribution, not adjudicating a product-safety case, and it is free to decline a risk on inspection evidence the federal government never funded itself to test. But it does mean a homeowner who is told “these were recalled” has been told something untrue, and the true version is stranger: this product was never cleared and never condemned, and the market settled the question the regulator left open.

What two named carriers actually publish

Carrier	Document and date	What it says	Route back to eligibility
Orion180 Insurance Company	Texas Flex Program Underwriting Guide, Homeowners Program — 13 January 2025	Lists as ineligible: “Knob and tube wiring… Aluminum wiring… Double-tapped wires… Unsafe electrical panels, including but not limited to: Fuse boxes… Federal Pacific Electrical (FPE)… Zinsco/GTE Silvania… Challenger.”	None stated. The risk is ineligible for the programme.
Homeowners of America Insurance Company	Texas Homeowners underwriting guidelines, ineligible risks — no revision date published on the page; retrieved 5 September 2026	Lists as ineligible: “Risks with Aluminum or knob and tube wiring.”	Aluminium wiring “may be eligible if properly modified, pig-tailed; proof from a licensed electrician will be required.”

Two carrier underwriting documents, quoted from the carrier’s own publication rather than from commentary about it. Both are Texas programmes; both were the guidelines publicly retrievable on 5 September 2026.

This is not a survey of the market. Underwriting guidelines are commonly confidential, and the two published here are the ones we could retrieve in full and quote exactly. They demonstrate that the rule exists and what it says; they do not establish how many carriers apply it, and we make no such claim. Guidelines change without notice — check the current version with the carrier, not with this page.

Every state, ranked by the share of its stock built 1950–1989

#	State	Housing units	Built 1950–1989	± MOE	% of stock	Built 1960–1979	% of stock
1	Hawaii	564,905	337,770	±3,553	59.8%	208,065	36.8%
2	Alaska	327,610	191,761	±2,764	58.5%	96,975	29.6%
3	California	14,532,683	8,317,350	±20,382	57.2%	4,308,940	29.6%
4	Connecticut	1,536,049	828,830	±6,767	54.0%	409,418	26.7%
5	Oklahoma	1,763,036	922,874	±5,994	52.3%	509,484	28.9%
6	New Mexico	949,524	490,560	±5,549	51.7%	249,309	26.3%
7	Louisiana	2,094,002	1,077,371	±8,854	51.5%	598,135	28.6%
8	New Jersey	3,775,842	1,936,388	±10,624	51.3%	958,315	25.4%
9	Maryland	2,545,532	1,291,928	±8,738	50.8%	635,679	25.0%
10	Michigan	4,599,683	2,330,313	±9,921	50.7%	1,226,721	26.7%
11	Florida	10,082,356	5,092,695	±19,480	50.5%	2,471,969	24.5%
12	Mississippi	1,332,811	651,340	±6,146	48.9%	369,420	27.7%
13	Virginia	3,654,784	1,786,398	±10,300	48.9%	903,720	24.7%
14	Wyoming	275,131	134,517	±2,618	48.9%	72,705	26.4%
15	New Hampshire	644,253	314,199	±4,246	48.8%	147,121	22.8%
16	Ohio	5,271,573	2,541,509	±11,727	48.2%	1,361,166	25.8%
17	Alabama	2,316,192	1,110,852	±7,831	48.0%	607,416	26.2%
18	Kansas	1,285,221	612,875	±5,779	47.7%	308,309	24.0%
19	Missouri	2,809,501	1,332,554	±8,534	47.4%	721,484	25.7%
20	Arkansas	1,382,664	654,161	±6,563	47.3%	370,158	26.8%
21	Illinois	5,443,501	2,567,099	±11,712	47.2%	1,408,591	25.9%
22	Kentucky	2,010,655	941,504	±7,996	46.8%	519,715	25.8%
23	West Virginia	859,653	400,812	±4,899	46.6%	209,343	24.4%
24	Rhode Island	484,615	224,462	±3,626	46.3%	109,629	22.6%
25	Pennsylvania	5,779,663	2,622,894	±11,976	45.4%	1,298,834	22.5%
26	Tennessee	3,095,472	1,397,688	±9,580	45.2%	737,840	23.8%
27	Minnesota	2,519,538	1,135,894	±6,713	45.1%	592,105	23.5%
28	Colorado	2,545,124	1,138,246	±7,210	44.7%	618,291	24.3%
29	Oregon	1,838,631	817,853	±6,358	44.5%	487,384	26.5%
30	Nebraska	855,631	379,470	±3,768	44.3%	221,259	25.9%
31	Vermont	337,072	149,012	±2,467	44.2%	78,186	23.2%
32	New York	8,539,536	3,768,961	±15,786	44.1%	1,885,432	22.1%
33	Arizona	3,142,443	1,378,191	±8,770	43.9%	692,990	22.1%
34	Indiana	2,953,344	1,297,978	±8,194	43.9%	704,815	23.9%
35	Wisconsin	2,750,750	1,206,225	±7,134	43.9%	657,793	23.9%
36	North Dakota	374,866	163,814	±2,611	43.7%	93,136	24.8%
37	Texas	11,890,808	5,173,989	±20,210	43.5%	2,559,273	21.5%
38	Montana	522,939	226,972	±3,262	43.4%	125,855	24.1%
39	Massachusetts	3,014,657	1,298,031	±8,754	43.1%	638,213	21.2%
40	Delaware	457,958	196,006	±3,373	42.8%	97,983	21.4%
41	Washington	3,262,667	1,397,170	±8,571	42.8%	767,465	23.5%
42	South Carolina	2,401,638	1,007,592	±7,726	42.0%	506,434	21.1%
43	Georgia	4,483,873	1,868,988	±12,303	41.7%	914,203	20.4%
44	Maine	746,552	311,250	±4,099	41.7%	154,223	20.7%
45	North Carolina	4,815,195	1,977,907	±10,682	41.1%	983,653	20.4%
46	Iowa	1,427,175	581,060	±4,861	40.7%	338,837	23.7%
47	South Dakota	402,364	161,917	±2,774	40.2%	89,839	22.3%
48	Utah	1,193,082	459,064	±4,497	38.5%	250,430	21.0%
49	Idaho	776,683	293,845	±3,867	37.8%	173,231	22.3%
50	Nevada	1,307,338	450,406	±4,900	34.5%	230,855	17.7%
51	District of Columbia	356,101	117,461	±2,997	33.0%	59,145	16.6%

US Census Bureau, ACS 2023 5-year table B25034. The 1950–1989 column is the four decade bands summed; the margin of error is the root sum of squares of the four component margins, at 90 per cent confidence. The 1960–1979 column is the window that contains the aluminium branch-wiring era and cannot be narrowed further in this table.

Ranked on the sixth column, not the fourth. California, Texas and Florida hold the most era-built homes in absolute terms — 8.3, 5.2 and 5.1 million — while Hawaii, Alaska and Connecticut have the largest shares. Both readings matter and they answer different questions: volume tells a contractor where the work is, share tells a homeowner how ordinary their situation is locally.

Where the era-built stock actually is

Each state shaded by the percentage of its housing units built between 1950 and 1989. This is construction era. It is not a map of Federal Pacific panels, and no such map exists. HyreElectrical analysis of US Census Bureau ACS 2023 5-year table B25034, retrieved 5 September 2026. Shading is linear across the observed range, 33.0 to 59.8 per cent.

The spread across states is narrower than most housing measures: from 33.0 per cent in the District of Columbia to 59.8 per cent in Hawaii, a range of under two to one. Eleven states have half or more of their housing stock in the 1950–1989 window.

The two ends of the distribution have opposite causes, which is worth stating because the map does not say it. The District of Columbia is low because its stock is older than the window — 31.7 per cent of it predates 1940 entirely, which puts it in knob-and-tube and early-conduit territory, a different set of problems that this page does not measure. Nevada, Idaho and Utah are low because their stock is newer: they built most of their housing after 1990.

HYRE analysis. A low share is therefore not a clean bill of health. The useful reading is the pair of columns together — a state high on the 1950–1989 share and high on the 1960–1979 share, such as Hawaii, Louisiana or Connecticut, has a stock concentrated in the window where all three products overlap. Ten states hold 54.2 per cent of every era-built home in the country.

The evidence ladder, rung by rung

Everything on this page sits on one of four rungs, and we have kept them apart deliberately. A claim high on this ladder can be quoted as fact; one low on it cannot.

Rung 1 Federal statistical count.
The 67,068,006 and every state figure. Published by the Census Bureau with a margin of error. Quotable as fact, within its margin. ACS 2023 5-year, table B25034

Rung 2 Federal safety finding.
The 55× aluminium result and the 1965-to-mid-1970s installation window. A federal agency’s own published conclusion. Quotable, with its scope: outlets only, pre-1972 homes only. CPSC Publication 516, June 2011

Rung 3 Federal non-finding.
The FPE investigation closed with no determination either way. Quotable only as the absence it is — never as clearance, never as condemnation. CPSC news release, 1983

Rung 4 Private underwriting rule.
The carrier guidelines. Evidence of what the market does, not of what is dangerous. Quotable about insurance, never about physics. Carrier underwriting guides, retrieved 5 September 2026

What a homeowner can actually establish, in order

1
Read the label on the panel door, and stop there
The manufacturer’s name is printed on the panel cover or on the label inside the door — Federal Pacific, FPE, Stab-Lok, Zinsco, Sylvania, Challenger. Reading a label is the whole of the safe DIY step. Do not remove the dead front cover. The bus bars behind it are live even with the main breaker off, and this is the point at which unqualified people are killed.
2
Check the cable jacket for aluminium, where it is already visible
CPSC’s own instruction: in an unfinished basement, attic or garage, look at the printed or embossed marking on the outer jacket of the cable, using a torch at a low angle. Aluminium conductors are marked “AL” or “ALUMINUM” every few feet. A marking that also says “CU-clad” or “copper-clad” is a different product and is outside CPSC’s repair recommendations.
3
Get the year built from the assessor, not from the listing
The county assessor’s parcel record carries the year built and is the figure your insurer’s data vendor is most likely using. If it is between 1965 and the mid 1970s, the aluminium question is live even if the panel is a modern replacement, because rewiring a panel does not change what is in the walls.
4
Ask the insurer what would restore eligibility, in writing
The remedies differ and they are not interchangeable. One of the carriers quoted above will accept aluminium wiring that has been pigtailed with proof from a licensed electrician; the other lists it as ineligible with no route back. That difference is worth thousands of pounds of work and it is knowable before you commission any of it.
5
Match the repair to what CPSC actually recognises
For aluminium branch circuits, CPSC recognises three permanent repairs and only three: full replacement with copper, COPALUM pigtailing, and AlumiConn connectors. Ordinary twist-on wire connectors are not among them. For a panel, replacement by a licensed electrician under permit is the work — and the permit matters, because an unpermitted panel swap is the thing the next inspection finds.

Limitations

Construction era is a weak proxy and it is the whole method
This is stated at the top of the page and repeated here because it is the limitation that matters more than all the others together. The count is of homes built when these products were sold. Most of them never had one. Of those that did, many have been replaced. No number here is a panel count.
The aluminium era cannot be isolated from the decade bands
CPSC dates residential aluminium branch wiring from 1965 to the mid 1970s. Table B25034 divides the stock into decades, so the closest available window is 1960–1979, which is roughly twice as wide as the era itself. The 34.7 million figure is therefore a substantial overstatement of the aluminium-era stock and is published as an upper bound, not an estimate.
Five-year estimates are a five-year average
ACS 2023 5-year data pools 2019 through 2023. It is not a 2023 snapshot, and in a fast-building state the pooled estimate lags the current stock.
Mobile homes are dated by model year
Census dates mobile homes, houseboats and RVs by the manufacturer’s model year. In states with a large manufactured-housing share, a different quantity is being counted in the same column — and manufactured housing of that era has its own distinct electrical history that this measure does not separate.
Demolition and replacement are invisible
The table counts units standing at the time of interview. A home built in 1968, rewired in 2005 and re-panelled in 2018 is counted identically to one that has never been touched. There is no national record of panel replacement, which is precisely why the exposure cannot be narrowed below the era.
The carrier evidence is two documents, not a market survey
Underwriting guidelines are usually confidential. Two were publicly retrievable in full, both Texas programmes, and they are quoted rather than characterised. They show the rule exists and what it says. They do not support any claim about what share of the market applies it, and we make none.
Zinsco’s evidence base is inspection practice, not federal literature
Unlike aluminium wiring, which has a CPSC publication, and unlike FPE, which has a closed CPSC investigation, Zinsco has neither. The section above says so rather than borrowing FPE’s federal record to cover it.

Method

Source. US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2023 five-year estimates, table B25034 (year structure built), for the United States and for each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Retrieved 5 September 2026.

Retrieval route. An unauthenticated request to api.census.gov returned a missing-key page on the retrieval date, so figures were taken from the public table-based Summary File at www2.census.gov — the same estimates, published by the same programme, from a route requiring no credential. The substitution changes no figure and is recorded because an unrecorded workaround is how a source quietly stops being checked.

Derivation. The 1950–1989 count is B25034 lines 006 through 009 summed (1980–1989, 1970–1979, 1960–1969, 1950–1959). The 1960–1979 count is lines 007 and 008. Margins of error on both sums are the square root of the sum of the squared component margins, which is the method the Census Bureau publishes for derived sums, at 90 per cent confidence. Percentages are the sum over line 001. Puerto Rico is excluded throughout; it is in the source file and is not a state.

Evidence for the hazards is CPSC’s own material: Publication 516 (June 2011) for aluminium branch circuits, and the Commission’s 1983 news release for the closure of the Federal Pacific investigation. Both are quoted directly. Carrier positions are quoted from the carriers’ own published underwriting guidelines, named and dated where the document carries a date.

Reproducibility. Every input is a public file. The Summary File for table B25034 is a single download; the state rows are the records whose geographic identifier begins 0400000US. Anyone with the file can rebuild every column in this study, and we would rather they did than take the arithmetic on trust.

Questions

How many US homes have Federal Pacific panels?

Nobody knows, and anyone who gives you a number is estimating without a source. There is no dataset in the United States that counts installed electrical panels by manufacturer. What can be counted is the housing stock built while those panels were being installed: 67,068,006 units, 47.1 per cent of everything standing, built between 1950 and 1989. Most of those homes never had a Federal Pacific panel, and many that did have been upgraded since.

Were Federal Pacific Stab-Lok breakers ever recalled?

No. The Consumer Product Safety Commission opened an investigation in June 1980 and closed it in 1983, stating that the data available did not establish that the breakers pose a serious risk of injury, and explicitly closing the matter without making a determination as to their safety. Staff estimated that gathering the necessary data would cost several million dollars against a $34 million agency budget for fiscal 1983. The Commission noted it could reopen the investigation; it has not. “Never recalled” is not the same as “found safe”, and it is not the same as “found dangerous” either.

Which years did homes get aluminium wiring?

CPSC states that homes built before 1965 are unlikely to have aluminium branch-circuit wiring, and that cables installed between 1965 and the mid 1970s — in new homes, in additions and in rewired circuits — may contain it. A mid-1960s copper shortage is why it spread from large-appliance circuits to general-purpose 15- and 20-amp circuits. Note that larger-gauge aluminium for service entrances, ranges and dryers is a different, still-current product and is not part of this hazard.

How much more likely is aluminium wiring to overheat?

A national survey conducted by the Franklin Research Institute for CPSC found that homes built before 1972 and wired with aluminium are 55 times more likely to have one or more wire connections at outlets reach what the survey defined as “Fire Hazard Conditions” — cover-plate screws at 149 °C, sparks emitted, or charring of surrounding material — than homes wired with copper. Two scope limits matter: the survey covered connections at outlets only, and no information was developed for aluminium-wired homes built after 1972.

Will insurance actually be refused over an old panel?

It happens, and carriers publish it. Orion180’s Texas Flex homeowners underwriting guide dated 13 January 2025 lists as ineligible knob-and-tube wiring, aluminium wiring, double-tapped wires and “unsafe electrical panels, including but not limited to” fuse boxes, Federal Pacific Electrical, Zinsco/GTE Sylvania and Challenger. Homeowners of America’s Texas guidelines list aluminium and knob-and-tube as ineligible but allow aluminium back in if it has been properly pigtailed with proof from a licensed electrician. Rules vary by carrier, by programme and by state, and they change without notice — ask yours directly.

Which states have the most homes from this era?

By volume, California (8,317,350 units built 1950–1989), Texas (5,173,989) and Florida (5,092,695). By share of the local stock, Hawaii (59.8 per cent), Alaska (58.5 per cent) and California (57.2 per cent). Ten states hold 54.2 per cent of all era-built housing in the country. The lowest shares are the District of Columbia (33.0 per cent), Nevada (34.5) and Idaho (37.8) — but DC is low because its stock is older than the window, not newer, which is a different set of electrical problems rather than an absence of them.

Can I check the panel myself?

You can read the manufacturer’s name on the panel cover or the label inside the door, and that is where safe DIY ends. Do not remove the dead front cover: the bus bars behind it remain live with the main breaker off. For wiring, CPSC’s own guidance is to look at the printed markings on cable jackets where they are already exposed in a basement, attic or garage — “AL” or “ALUMINUM” indicates aluminium conductors. Anything beyond looking is work for a licensed electrician.

What repairs does CPSC actually accept for aluminium wiring?

Three, and only three, as of Publication 516: complete replacement of the branch circuits with copper; pigtailing with a COPALUM connector; and the AlumiConn connector as an acceptable alternative. CPSC applies three tests to any method — safe, effective and permanent — and explicitly excludes anything designed for temporary or emergency repair. Ordinary twist-on wire connectors are not on the list.

Does a newer panel mean the aluminium problem is solved?

No. Replacing a load centre changes the distribution equipment, not the branch-circuit conductors in the walls. A 1968 house with a 2018 panel still has whatever cable was installed in 1968 feeding its receptacles, and the CPSC hazard is at the connections — receptacles, switches, junction boxes and appliance terminations — not at the panel. This is also why the era count cannot be reduced by counting panel upgrades.

Written and audited by

HyreElectrical Research Desk

Primary-source research and fact checking

We read the model code, the federal safety notice, the municipal fee sheet or the utility tariff ourselves, and we publish the figure with the document it came from and the date we retrieved it. Where a number cannot be traced to a primary source, we publish the shorter page and say what we could not verify. HyreElectrical does not perform, supervise or warrant electrical work. Authorship is organisational: this desk, not a named persona.

10: long-form launch pages in this layout
5: states with verified licence records
16,369: electrical companies in those records
74%: of the store is Florida — disclosed first, not footnoted

How this desk works

Primary sources only. Code statements come from NFPA 70 as the model code. Safety statements come from CPSC. Permit fees come from the city or county fee sheet. Utility charges come from the filed tariff. We do not cite a blog that cites a source; we open the source.
Our contractor store is five states, and 74% of it is Florida. Any figure built on that store is titled to those states and names the concentration in the first screen. It is not a national sample of electricians.
Load calculations on this site are a published simplification in the shape of NEC 220.82 — first 10 kVA at 100%, remainder at 40%, HVAC at 100%, EVSE at 125%. They are labelled as not a stamped calculation. A licensed electrician using the adopted edition does that work.
No national price for a panel upgrade is shipped. Labour rates, the adopted code edition, whether the utility is involved, and the state of the existing wiring move the invoice too far for a roundup to help. Cost intent lives on the cost page; this page explains the decision.
We do not perform electrical work, and we take no payment for placement, ranking or a favourable mention. Nobody buys a position on this site.

Data as of 5 September 2026. Authorship on this site is organisational: the analysis belongs to the desk rather than to a named individual, and we do not publish credentials we do not hold. Our editorial policy sets out how we source, date and correct what we publish.

Sources & retrieval dates

US Census Bureau — American Community Survey 2023 5-year estimates, table B25034 (Year Structure Built) , Public table-based Summary File. Total housing units and all decade bands for the United States, the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
US Consumer Product Safety Commission — Publication 516, “Repairing Aluminum Wiring” (June 2011) , The 55× Franklin Research Institute finding and its definition of “Fire Hazard Conditions”; the 1965-to-mid-1970s installation window; the three recognised permanent repairs; the copper-clad and large-gauge exclusions. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
US Consumer Product Safety Commission — “Commission Closes Investigation Of FPE Circuit Breakers And Provides Safety Information For Consumers” (1983) , The investigation opened June 1980 and closed in 1983 without a determination as to the safety of FPE circuit breakers; the cost and budget reasoning; the note that the Commission may reopen. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
Orion180 Insurance Company — Texas Flex Program Underwriting Guide, Homeowners Program, 13 January 2025 , Ineligible risks: knob-and-tube wiring, aluminium wiring, double-tapped wires, and unsafe electrical panels including fuse boxes, Federal Pacific Electrical (FPE), Zinsco/GTE Sylvania and Challenger. Retrieved 5 September 2026.
Homeowners of America Insurance Company — Texas Homeowners underwriting guidelines, ineligible risks , Risks with aluminium or knob-and-tube wiring are ineligible; aluminium may be eligible if properly modified and pigtailed with proof from a licensed electrician. Retrieved 5 September 2026.

Found one of these in your panel?

The next step is a licensed electrician who will pull a permit, not a stranger with an opinion. Tell us what the label says and where the house is, and we will connect you with licensed electrical companies in your area.

Panel upgrades explained Check a licence first

HyreElectrical does not perform, supervise or warrant electrical work, and takes no payment for placement, ranking or favourable mention. This page is research, not advice on a specific property, and nothing on it is a substitute for an inspection by a licensed electrician. We have no commercial relationship with any insurer, panel manufacturer or connector manufacturer named above.