Zinsco Breaker Panel

I am looking at buying a house with a Zinsco main panel. I have had conflicting advise about this brand of panel. I know that these panels aren't sold anymore. Is this due to safety concerns or bad management? It is a 200 amp service that also feeds another Zinsco sub-panel in a closet.

I guess that my question is: Should I replace the panels or should I just leave it alone?

All of this assumes that all of the associated wiring is good an correctly installed.


Tony

 

Tony--As far as I know, the only (main) problem is finding -and paying for- breakers. I know Home Depot and Lumberjack (before they went out of business) had breakers at aprox. 10x cost of GE or Square D. For instance a 100 amp main was 100 bucks when Square D panel with 100amp main installed was 49. This was a couple years ago while I was still working--don't know if this still holds true. Any time I was changing svc to 200 amps or adding more circuits, I changed from Zinsco--cheaper in the long run. Wish I had saved all those breakers, dead-man covers, lids,etc.
Hope this helps
chuck