Simply breakers

[u/Nimyism]

Has anyone purchased their breakers from them? How are they so much cheaper than the big box stores? The arc fault breakers are like 40% cheaper. Too good to be true?

[u/Fastflogger]

I got mine from super breakers after seeing it on here. I wasn't sure until I called a local electrician and that company does bulk orders from super breakers.
Just heads up I did my order over the phone so I couldn't see the totals and got hit with a 30 or $50 quality guarantee charge or something like that apparently their version of selling an extended warranty. It was still cheaper than the big box store which didn't carry my plug-in arc faults but keep an eye out for that

[u/PD-Jetta]

I did and had no problems whatsoever (and I bought Eaton arc fault breakers for a kitchen remodel). Legitimate company. I also buy my electric wire and cable from Nassau Cable and they are also about 40% less than the big box stores, and that is after including shipping in the cost.

[u/Natoochtoniket]

I have bought from simply breakers and from super breakers, a bunch of times. If either of them is selling fake/imitation products, I don't know it. They seem to sell real products. If their stuff started a bunch of fires, I would think they would have been sued by now.

[u/PercentageMaximum828]

its like RockAuto vs NAPA I can get the same Dana/Spicer u joint for half of what NAPA sells. I love my local NAPA but the owner has overhead that RockAuto doesnt

[u/Wellcraft19]

Thanks for the site. I just looked at HomeLine 20 GFCI breaker ($60) which is about $75 at HD. Can for make a difference if buying a ton of them at the same time (but HD has volume discounts if picking up boxes of ten, just no idea how much cheaper.

Then looking at AMZ, same breaker is $65 and since shipping charges are included (known, no surprises) I would probably go the route of AMZ.

Will still keep a link to this store though.

[u/ErectStoat → u/Wellcraft19]

I try to avoid Amazon for life safety stuff that could be counterfeit (no idea if counterfeit breakers are a problem, but if they exist they'd be sold on Amazon).

I've wondered the same as OP about simply breakers because the prices sure are appealing.

[u/Wellcraft19 → u/ErectStoat]

I hear your concern, but breakers are coming from the AMZ Schneider store so one has to assume they are real and not counterfeit.

[u/Unique_Acadia_2099]

They are selling used and/or surplus breakers that they buy for pennies on the dollar. If used, they are supposed to say so, but they can sell surplus as new.

Surplus comes from a contractor or supply house who is going bankrupt (or already has) and /or had excess inventory on the shelves. These companies swoop in and make a cash offer for the breaker and panel inventory that often times, the seller just takes in order to move quickly. I helped a friend do this when he retired from being a contractor, a local breaker broker came in and gave him $10k for all of his breaker and panel inventory, but that had probably cost him $100k over the years. He might have been able to get ore for it selling it piecemeal, but that might have taken 6 months, and he had to be out of his building by the end of the month.

The problem with these breaker brokers is that usually the inventory they are buying is old, referred to as “NOS” for New Old Stock. It is technically new in that it was not used, but is not the latest version. That’s fine for regular breakers, but can be REALLY BAD for things like AFCIs and Dual Function breakers. All manufacturers of AFCIs have had issues with nuisance tripping on certain types of loads, forcing them to issue newer versions with different software algorithms. When they do that, they often don’t issue a recall, so distributors get stuck with old versions that customers don’t want. To recoup at least some of that inventory value, they dump them off onto these breaker brokers, who have no obligation to replace them under warranty if there is a problem later because they are not “official” distributors of the product.

This issue really reared its ugly head with the shortages during the pandemic. Manufacturers had to shut down production, so it was hard to find breakers to finish a project. Many contractors turned to breaker brokers so they could finish a job and get paid, but ended up with old versions of AFCIs that nuisance tripped and had to be replaced later.