Original poster: "Gerry Reynolds" <gerryreynolds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>I can attest to the dangerous response of the FPE breakers. I had a dead short on a device plugged into a 120V outlet with a 15amp FPE breaker and it took 3 seconds for it to pop. At that time the wire was smoking. This circuit has never had its breaker popped before. Another failure mode of these breakers is they work the first time but not after that :-(( Needless to say, I replace my FPE breaker panel.
Gerry R
Original poster: David Dean <deano@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Unless you are using old FPE breakers that were popular in the 1960's and 1970's, which have a bad reputation for never tripping, it may take a while for the breaker to trip. See http://www.swgr.com/CircuitBreakersTech_Home.asp for a better explanation than I can give.