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I have an older Federal Pioneer 60A panel in my woodshop. The building is insulated but generally kept unheated and I am in Canada where the winters can get very cold. To help with this I have a mid-size electric construction heater (4.8Kw) that I want to use in the shop.

I added a 30A 2-pole breaker to the panel and connected it with 10/3 wire to a 30A receptacle. When I started the heater everything was working beautifully so I left it for awhile to warm up the shop. However after about half an hour of running the main breaker on the panel tripped. All I had running at the time was the heater and 3 150W lights.

My thinking at this point is that the main breaker in the panel is old and, with the continued current draw from the heater, it tripped due to thermal overload.

Is this a reasonable assumption or is there another more likely cause?

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    If you search for "Federal Pioneer" here, you'll see dozens of references to "fire starter" and recommendations to rip them out of the wall and replace them immediately. I'm sure you'll get the same advice. In the mean time, a clear, focused pictures of the label(s) inside the panel and of the panel wiring with the cover plate removed will help
    – FreeMan
    Commented Dec 16, 2021 at 14:07
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    As an example, here's a question from just a couple of hours ago asking about a FP panel with recommendations to replace it.
    – FreeMan
    Commented Dec 16, 2021 at 14:17
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    Yeah, you are lucky it trips instead of the other way around. They say FP panels are best welders. I had mine not trip on short that melted a probe from a multimeter and some bolts on receptacle (it slipped when I was trying to measure voltage).
    – Eugene
    Commented Dec 17, 2021 at 0:06

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The same panel is made as both Federal Pacific in the US and Federal Pioneer in Canada. It had an innovative "bus stab" design (flat plate with stamped rectangular holes) which aimed to make the panel cheaper. This design failed catastrophically, with many bus burn-ups on top of a Volkswagen diesel-like scandal of faking breaker certifications. This should have resulted in the company paying to replace every FPE panel with a competitor's. However corporate tactics were used to sidestep liability, so the US regulator gave up.

In Canada, Schneider (Square D) bought the line but also refused to make new panels. (says everything you need to know). We politely presume they used their considerable breaker know-how to fix the breaker problem (which Chinecticut Electric did not). However, there is no indication that they solved deficiencies in the bus stab design.

Since it's fairly easy for you to de-energize that subpanel, my best advice would be to "cut your losses" on the old FP panel and install a modern quality panel. I'm a huge fan of aluminum feeder wire in large sizes... but for panels in harsh conditions, I can vouch for the performance of copper bus stabs, as found in certain Siemens panels, Eaton CH type, and Square D (Schneider) QO type.

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    So, to summarize, there's really nothing I can do to the existing panel so that it will operate properly. Unfortunately this panel isn't actually a sub-panel. I live on an acreage and each building on my property has service coming directly from the main service to the property, but I do have a main breaker on the service that I can throw to do the upgrade.
    – Brian
    Commented Dec 16, 2021 at 20:52
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    @Brian The main cutoff somewhere is the key. There was another post recently of someone who was replacing/upgrading breakers on a similar panel but refused to replace the whole panel at this time, who was also complaining about the cost to have the utility temporarily disconnect in order to either replace the panel (which we all recommend) or replace the main breaker (which they claimed they could get, though I am dubious). If you've got a safe way to cut off all power to the panel then the rest is (relatively speaking) easy.
    – manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact
    Commented Jan 16, 2022 at 0:32
  • @Brian I assume you have one master electric meter and then distribution from there to each building? It is "service" only from the utility pole to the main disconnect, after that, all the wires are feeder. Aside from the master breaker the modern approach is to have a breaker on a per-feeder basis, sized appropriate for that feeder (e.g. 90A on #2 aluminum feeder).
    – Harper - Reinstate Monica
    Commented Jan 16, 2022 at 6:24

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