Square D is my preference, but Cutler Hammer makes very good stuff as well. You'll be fine either way.

Listen to your electrician. Both CH and Sq-D make first rate products. Even the "lower end" models like Sq-D HOM and CH BR are totally fine for residences. If you trust your electrician, trust his choice in panels. For the most part, its just what panel he is most used to installing. I'd rather have an electrician who has installed 100s of CH-BR panels use one in my house rather than tell him "NO You have to use GE panels," (just using GE as an example). Not only does this piss the electrician off, but he might not have as much experience with GE, and therefore might not do as good a job as he would with his panel he is used to. After all, a quality instalition is a critical part, if the the most important aspect, of a safe setup.

Bottom line, if you trust your electrician, trust his choice in panels. All products made today, especially any form CH or Sq-D, are fine for residences if properly installed.

Could be worse, could be fpe or zinsco.

OOOOKAAAY. If this fpe or zinsco is what I think it is, that is the point of my question, since I am not an electrician! He could be putting in anything I have never heard of.
Thanks everyone,for calming me down. I must have SOME faith

A funny thing happened on my way to the forum, speaking of Federal and Zinsco/GTE Sylvania, we recently did service upgrades on 3 residences accumulating about 60 breakers. A local breaker company paid me $150 for them. Don't think either of these are available any longer as new so there is a big market for used breakers to repair or expand old service panels.

When I remove FPE or Zinsco breakers I take a hammer to them to get the things out of circulation. IMHO it ought to be illegal to have a resale market for them.

Old Zinsco and FPE panels don't need repairs or expansion - - they need to go away. I've been known to donate the time, sometimes even the material, to get these things out of a house.

One of the reasons I don't use Sq D is that their parent company owns Federal Pioneer in Canada and boycotting all of the Schnieder Electric owned companies is just my way of protesting.

Last time I needed a Zinsco breaker, the new replacement was by Challenger. And very expensive. It was at a very modest private residence where the two primary residents were bedridden, the Zinsco panel was on the exterior of the house, people were hired to provide 24/7 to care for the residents. No extra money. I donated my labor. I do save items which might be useful for repairs later. In another case, an owner of a private residence had managed to get the property rezoned for commercial use, had a contract for selling it to a developer, had two college students as tenants with 3 months left on the lease. The 60 amp fuse-type main panel developed problems. I had an identical used one in my "inventory" and installed the working parts in his enclosure. Completed the job within 3 hours of being called. For that job, I charged the highest hourly rate I have ever charged- and the owner was thrilled to save the hundreds of dollars that an entirely new service would have cost. Fortunately (?), I have lots of storage space. Some Sylvania breakers will fit Zinsco and vice-versa.

Some square D breakers will fit cutler hammer and vice- versa, but so what?

I can't figure out why the US Federal Pioneer panels were such crap and the Canadian Federal Pioneer panels were and are excellent. I'd guesstimate that over 90% of new residential installation in Canada is FPE. My current (no pun intended) house was originally custom built by an electrical contractor as his residence, and what's the panel? Federal Pioneer.
So, does anyone know, what's the construction difference between the US and Canadian FP panels?

Bigbird, I have yet to get an answer to that same question myself.

At the risk of starting a war, which I've been known to do from time to time, do a bit of reading on the inspect ny site. You don't have to believe everything you read there to understand there's something very wrong with some FPE stuff, and that Federal Pioneer tried to sell re-branded FPE breakers and wound up with a recall is a matter of record. You don't have to allow the sense of outrage I have at practices like this to affect the way you think or do business.

Whether or not you find the issues with the stab-loc buss a problem is your own business. I've replaced too many of the panels with obvious problems to let the issue go - but that's me.

I hear all the time from guys that claim they've never found a problem with an FPE breaker or panel and the whole issue is blown out of proportion. You're entitled to your opinion, I just happen to know better and act accordingly.

I don't know what, if any, quality issues arise with FP stuff in Canada and whether or not there's another time bomb set to go off. All I do know is that the opportunity to dump suspect breakers on an unsuspecting public was presented and they jumped at the opportunity. That's enough for me.

ok, somewhere this got lost but back to the original post.

personally, I prefer square D but I do have to admit they are not what they used to be. I have been starting to see some things that concern me. Cutler Hammer seems to be acceptable as well.

Beyond the quality factor;

if you agreed to a price that included Square D and then the installer slipped in a C-H panel, I would definately do a price comaparison and then look for a rebate for the difference. Square D (depending on the product line used) can be considerably more expensive that a C-H product.

Just be sure you have not gotten taken advantage of price wise. Quality wise you shouldn;t have a problem with either one.

Second45:
Neither FPE, nor Zinsco are made today. I agree that if your contract was priced with a specific panel, then you could question your electrician about prices. But If you just asked him to install a Sq-D QO panel and he put in a CH series panel, I personally wouldn't say anything. Again I'll reiterate: I would be comfortable with any properly installed panel manufactured today by the major electrical suppliers. Aside from Sq-D and CH, there are other manufacturers like Murray, GE (THQP excluded), and Siemens that make fine products.

My last home had a GE main and a Sq-D sub panel I found both the be very acceptable. the building I have now has Siemens 100 amp panels for each apartment, I have been working with the home's wiring and they seem well made and easy to work in. if your electrician is trusted you should be fine with whatever he likes to install.

How egalatarian of those of you who replace Federal/Zinsco panels to save the world for free. Very simply, much of Dallas built in the 70ties has aluminum wiring and either Federal or Zinsco panels and these by and large are expensive homes. We make a lot of money upgrading this stuff. After all, we are master electricins and we are in business to make good money doing quality work one home at a time.

Well, I enjoyed all the chat. My electrician responded to me very quickly and offered to install which ever panel I desired. He does a lot of both Square D and Cutler hammer. IT makes no difference to him, it was what he has in his warehouse.
I have learned a lot from this experience. For one, I now know that if an estimate is scheduled to take 1 1/2 hours, I am not interested.

The amount of time an electrician takes to make an estimate depends largely on how prepared your are especially in knowing what you want. If the wiring in the house is being replaced or upgraded, what lights do you want dimmed? How about 3-ways? Do you have GFCIs where they are needed? Maybe you want to replace that out dated round ceiling light in the kitchen with a nice fan with a light controlled by a remote. Many times we hear from our customer, "since you are allready working in the kitchen will it cost anything extra to install a fan?" Our answer, yes, it will cost $150 extra.

Posted by groundrod (My Page) on Sat, May 12, 07 at 12:25

Some square D breakers will fit cutler hammer and vice- versa, but so what?
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I just happened to catch this. I do not believe Square D has sought UL approval to place their breakers in any panel other than square D. Cutler Hammer has done so but I do not remember what panels they are approved for.

It is illegal to place a breaker into a panel for which it does not have UL approval for whether it actually fits or not.

I prefer Cuttler Hammer over Square D. The price is quite a bit cheaper for the CH now, Square D used to be the go to until it raised the price. either are good quality panels and it comes down to price and personal preference now. Cuttler Hammer and Siemens are quite similar square D QO is a different system yet the new HOM series is very similar to cuttler Hammer and Siemens.

When my house was built in 2015, the builder used SquareD QO equipment, so when I decided to add a separate garage with its own subpanel, I also used QO panel and breakers. No problem getting this equipment at my "local" Lowes or electrical supply house.