When is it time to upgrade your electrical panel?
Sometimes its obvious when its time to upgrade your electrical panel or service, like when you’ve run out of space or plan to add multiple new circuits, other times it takes a skilled electrician to diagnose and ensure a home electrical system is safe.
Our experoienced electricians can look at your current electrical systems, and help you understand if it meets your future needs. Answering questions like:
“Does my panel have enough space for an Electric Vehicle Charger?”
“Is my electrical panel safe?”
“What are the benifits of upgrading?”
While some of these questions can be answered broadly, most take a qualified tech looking at your personal situation and listening to your current and future electrical needs. You can schedule LABAW Electric to evaluate your electrical panel safety. Our electricians can answer any of your questions and help guide you to make the right decisions.
Replace your undersized or outdated panel
An undersized or outdated panel can limit your home’s electrical capacity, cause frequent breaker trips, and create safety risks. We replace old panels with modern, properly sized systems that meet today’s electrical demands, provide room for future expansion, and ensure your home remains safe and code-compliant.
Zinsco Panel Replacement
Do You Have a Zinsco Electrical Panel?
Check your home’s electrical panel. If you see the name “Zinsco” anywhere on the labels, your system could pose a serious fire hazard. These panels would not meet today’s UL (Underwriters Laboratories) safety standards and would no longer be allowed on the market.
Several design flaws make Zinsco panels dangerous, including:
Loose connections between breakers and the bus bar that feeds power to your circuits.
Use of aluminum components, which typically deteriorate after about 30 years.
A bus bar that corrodes easily.
Breakers that appear to be off but may still allow electricity to flow internally.
Background
Zinsco panels were commonly installed in homes and buildings across the Western U.S. during the 1970s. After the brand was acquired by GTE Sylvania in 1973, manufacturing continued for a short time under names that still included Zinsco. By the mid-1970s, however, these breakers were no longer being produced.
Although Zinsco breakers may have performed adequately decades ago, they are now considered highly unreliable—especially with the greater electrical loads of modern households.
Here’s why:
Each breaker attaches to the bus bar with an aluminum, horseshoe-shaped clip.
These clips expand and contract with heat and often lose their grip, leading to poor connections and arcing.
If the panel uses an aluminum bus bar, corrosion can worsen the problem, further increasing the chance of arcing.
Arcing generates heat that can melt metal and plastic parts, sometimes spreading damage to neighboring breakers and potentially igniting the entire panel.
In many cases, breakers fuse to the bus bar and fail to trip during an overload or short circuit. This allows excessive electricity to surge unchecked through the panel and wiring. Once this happens, power cannot be shut off at the breaker and will continue until the wires burn or the main disconnect is shut off—creating a major fire risk.
What Should Homeowners Do?
Give us a call. Due to the fact that these failing Zinsco breakers don’t always show visible damage or failure, it is critical to have them removed by a licensed electrician. The only permanent solution is to replace the panel entirely with a modern, UL-listed model
How to Identify a Zinsco Panel
Look inside your electrical panel box for any of these names:
Zinsco
Sylvania
Sylvania-Zinsco
GTE-Sylvania
Breakers often have brightly colored tabs—blue, red, or green—though some are black as well.
Other companies also produced Zinsco-style breakers, including:
Challenger / Challenger Electric
Connecticut Electric (Unique Breakers, UBI)
GTE Electric
Kearney Electric
Millbank Electric
Thomas & Betts
If you find any of these markings or breaker styles, it’s a strong indication that your panel may be a Zinsco type and should be inspected and often replaced immediately.
