replacing main panel, should I add any AFCI breakers ?

[stoveliker]

I'm not disagreeing with your observations (don't have enough experience to do so), but if you think cde changes are due to one person at a desk being bored, you're wrong.
Proposed changes go through many layers of review at the NFPA.

Finally, be glad that at least they admit (and revert) when they are wrong.

 

[bigealta]

When price comes down and reliability go up then AFCI's will be more accepted. I've had a gfci or 2 go bad over the years but they have also performed well for me for the majority of the time. They are fairly priced and do the job well without being overly troublesome with nuisance trips. The biggest issue is people don't know which gfci to reset, or where it is, or even which button to push. These are all trivial issues.

The AFCI, i don't think are their yet. But maybe they will be in not to long.
I thought about adding them to some of my circuits as i question the wiring in my Utah house. But opted to not do it until they improve on their reliability.

 

[RustyShackleford]

Interesting discussion, but back to my OP ... If I'm only going to add 2-3 AFCI breakers, where should I add them ? Does my logic that bedroom fires are more likely to be life-threatening (because fires in other parts of the house will set off smoke alarms in time for evacuation) make sense ?

 

[bigealta]

Well after GFCI's in bath, kitchen, basement, garage, attic (i think?), and Ext, there isn't too much left other than beds and living rooms.

AFCI is really protecting against bad wiring. Anyone's guess where that would be? I guess your bedroom logic seems reasonable. I'm no expert, just a diy guy.

 

[vbu]

I'm originally from europe, and the GFCI rules are very different over there, better IMO. Growing up we never had a nuisance trip, and the whole house was protected. The GFCI's are in the panel. It is split up in 2 ways:

• One 300mA GFCI for the whole house, all incoming power goes through it
• 30mA GFCI for all outlets, lights, and damp spaces. Maximum 8 circuits per GFCI.

The 300mA protects solar panels, and permanently plugged in devices such as ovens and fridges, freezers etc.

Here the GFCI outlets trip at 4mA, which causes all the nuisance trips. Yes it is safer, but it only leads to people taking them out due to frustration. 30mA will still zap you pretty good, but you'll live

 

[RustyShackleford]

Well after GFCI's in bath, kitchen, basement, garage, attic (i think?), and Ext, there isn't too much left other than beds and living rooms.

I alreayd have GFCIs (outlets, not breakers) in all the places you're supposed to have them.

AFCI is really protecting against bad wiring. Anyone's guess where that would be? I guess your bedroom logic seems reasonable. I'm no expert, just a diy guy.

Yeah, no reason to think the bedroom wiring is worse. It's just the consequence seems like it'd be worse there ...

 

[fbelec]

arc fault breakers on a older circuit is a problem waiting to happen. if arc fault breakers are so good than there would never be a nuisance trip. i only put them in when i have to. try telling a customer that it will cost them 62 dollars plus tax every time i come to there house for this problem. and that is just for the breaker. that price does not include getting to their house and troubleshooting the circuit for them which includes taking things apart and putting back together. could be anywhere.

Finally, be glad that at least they admit (and revert) when they are wrong.

the nec never apologizes just reverts the code and that's that. they never admit when they are wrong. it's like 25 to 30 years ago they had us putting a switch on a house heater that would not only shut off the hot wire but shut off the hot and the neutral. that was after some dummy did his own work and the switch did nothing and the firing heater burnt the house down. so they put it back to the way it always has been just shut off the hot. they are quick to change the code and make us fools do the research for them.

as far as gfi receptacles they would be fine if everyone would put in weather resistant outlets.

the code on arc fault circuits is any new circuit or if you were to extend a circuit by adding a light or a receptacle is to be arc fault type. the code for making any circuit in a bedroom arc fault went away about 30 years ago. they would make it to any circuit that ran thru a bedroom was arc fault. i did a service change for someone selling their 2 family house and back then it was going to put a 750 dollar price to the service and that was 30 years ago. we were in a uproar about this because even a smoke detector was on it which is wrong. i had one bedroom that had 5 circuit running thru it. so that means that the circuit got a arc fault breaker when they were always tripping. first generation.
so that has left a bad taste in the mouths of electricians

you are best to bring you house up to 2024 standards for smoke and carbon monoxide detectors which is smoke detectors in everyroom of the house except bathrooms and kitchens. one carbon monoxide detector per habitable floor and where there is a bedroom within 10 feet of a bedroom door. in large houses sometimes there are 2 carbon monoxide detectors on one floor. and 5 to 20 feet of a fuel burning appliance. codes call for a smoke detector in the attic but the directions say that smoke detectors are not to be installed if the ambient temp. is to be 104 degrees or hotter. i've been in attics that were in the 90's in novemeber and up here in massachusetts outside is usually in the low 50's to 40's at that time.

you'll find a lot of fires start in bathrooms and bedrooms from smoking material that was not controlled. oh ya any smoke detector installed within twenty feet of a kitchen or bathroom has to be photo electric but one detector in the house has to be ionization type. there is also one heat detector per bay of a attached garage. one type detects smoke better than fire and the other detects fire better than smoke i always forget which is which. this is just my opinion and that's what i would do if i were to do something like that

 

[EbS-P]

Interesting discussion, but back to my OP ... If I'm only going to add 2-3 AFCI breakers, where should I add them ? Does my logic that bedroom fires are more likely to be life-threatening (because fires in other parts of the house will set off smoke alarms in time for evacuation) make sense ?

Bedrooms, home office, and circuits below open stairs.

 

[RustyShackleford]

Bedrooms, home office, and circuits below open stairs.

BRs for reason I mentioned (we're sleeping there). Below open stairs , because fire spreads rapidly ? Why home office ?

 

[EbS-P]

BRs for reason I mentioned (we're sleeping there). Below open stairs , because fire spreads rapidly ? Why home office ?

I was looking around and that’s where I see a lot of cheap items purchased online that get plugged into power strips. And laptop cords which get rather abused

 

[hockeypuck]

If you have central AC and not plugging high load items like local resistive heating, I would not be jamming AFCI's in all circuits. Bedrooms maybe. Make sure your smoke detectors are in all spots. As far as sum pumps and basement freezers go, I would never put them on a fault breaker/recepticle. Call me old school.

 

[fbelec]

If you have central AC and not plugging high load items like local resistive heating, I would not be jamming AFCI's in all circuits. Bedrooms maybe. Make sure your smoke detectors are in all spots. As far as sum pumps and basement freezers go, I would never put them on a fault breaker/recepticle. Call me old school.

ok your old school. but absolutely right. compressors are famous for tripping gfi receptacles and breakers and arc trips because they want to. the code book said that any outlet or circuit in a utility room does not have to be arc fault. try telling the inspector that one. he'll laugh then tell you put in arc fault on every receptacle in a house because that is what he wants to see.

 

[RustyShackleford]

Another question, for Siemens breakers I've noted that combination AFCI/GFCI breakers tend to about the same price as AFCI ones. Doesn't make that much sense, anyone know why ? Most of the places I want to put AFCI protection, because they're bedrooms and/or tend to have a lot of devices plugged in, don't really need GFCI protection (not wet), and the ones that do need it, already have GFCI outlets. I'm afraid putting in the combo breakers (with un-needed GFCI protection) will lead to more nuisance trips. But they cost the same. So I'm not sure what to do.

 

[RustyShackleford]

I didn’t have to put redress windows in the rooms in the basement my kids are sleeping in ...

Looking back over this thread, @EbS-P , what on EARTH are "redress windows" ? Typo, I imagine, but I still can't figure it out.

 

[EbS-P]

Looking back over this thread, @EbS-P , what on EARTH are "redress windows" ? Typo, I imagine, but I still can't figure it out.

Egress windows. Autocorrect fail

 

[fbelec]

if you put gfi on top of gfi they will have a fight on who can trip the fastest, and nuisance tripping. if you already have gfi receptacles then you don't need the gfi breaker. get the afi only. up here in mass. the inspectors want the breakers for outlets behind the fridge and dishwashers to be afi/gfi the rest have to be afi breakers or the combo with regular outlets.

 

[RustyShackleford]

Ok. Think I'm just gonna do AFCI on the outlets in both BRs, living room, and office/computer room. Plus kitchen outlets. Thinking main risk is stuff plugged into the outlets, not the house wiring itself.

Thanks for the warning on combining GFCI or dual-function breaker with GFCI outlet though.

Was a pleasant surprise to find the Siemens AFCI breakers I just bought have only one terminal - you don't have to bring the branch circuit neutral conductor to the breaker. The breaker still needs a neutral connection, but that happens seamlessly with the plug-on neutral feature.

 

[EbS-P]

Ok. Think I'm just gonna do AFCI on the outlets in both BRs, living room, and office/computer room. Plus kitchen outlets. Thinking main risk is stuff plugged into the outlets, not the house wiring itself.

Thanks for the warning on combining GFCI or dual-function breaker with GFCI outlet though.

Was a pleasant surprise to find the Siemens AFCI breakers I just bought have only one terminal - you don't have to bring the branch circuit neutral conductor to the breaker. The breaker still needs a neutral connection, but that happens seamlessly with the plug-on neutral feature.

Plug on neutral is a great feature. Makes the panel less crowded.

 

[fbelec]

less crowded to a point there is still two wires or three if you include the ground. plug on neutral makes for a nice neat panel incase the specific circuit has to be worked on.

 

[fbelec]

the nice thing about siemens breakers is that little led light that tells you that you overloaded or you have a arc fault. btw if you cross the white wire with the ground the breaker will trip as a arc fault just like a gfi breaker will do.

 

[OffGridICF]

It doesn't apply in your case, but another trade-off worth considering if you live off grid is that GFCI and AFCI breakers are phantom loads, drawing 1-3W each 24/7. If there are 5 AFCI in a panel plus 5 GFCI receptacles at 2W each, that's 20W times 24 hours or 480Wh per day, over 25% of what an efficient refrigerator draws. That's 14.4kWh of power that needs to be generated and potentially stored in batteries every month.

 

[fbelec]

how do you charge the batteries that will give you 480 watt hours a day?

 

[OffGridICF]

how do you charge the batteries that will give you 480 watt hours a day?

Hi Frank,

At the risk of getting in trouble for thread hijacking ;-)

Our power is primarily from a PV array with generator backup. We're just south of the Canadian border so winter days are short and mostly cloudy. A large array helps but it's still not enough. The biggest improvement came from the change to LiFePO4 batteries. In the summer we cannot use all the power we can generate, although welding legs and fittings on hot water storage tanks for the new boiler is adding to the demand.

 

[fbelec]

hi offgridicl on october hook up 2 to 4 panels and you should solve your problem. we have the same issue, from october to mid march the sun angle is alot lower so instead of 5600 watts in the summer we produce 1800 watts. so if you are fully off grid you should make more power for a short time or curve your electric use in the winter

 

[OffGridICF]

hi offgridicl on october hook up 2 to 4 panels and you should solve your problem. we have the same issue, from october to mid march the sun angle is alot lower so instead of 5600 watts in the summer we produce 1800 watts. so if you are fully off grid you should make more power for a short time or curve your electric use in the winter

Hi Frank,

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately, 2-4 panels is not going to make up our shortfall in Jan, Nov and Dec. There are 3 factors that limit our winter production: 1. Sun angle / short days at almost 49N latitude. 2. Predominantly overcast and snowy days. 3. Limited sun access due to topography. The sun is about 20 degrees above the horizon in December and it is blocked by mountains to our south in the morning and afternoon. We can only get a max of about 2 hours (if any) of direct sun exposure as a result. Often we only see 300-600W from an 8kW array. Maybe another pallet of modules would do the trick ;-) We are fully off grid and do try to limit our power usage but it still adds up.

That said, our new house will have the minimum number of GFCI breakers as required by code. AFCI breakers are still to be determined. Anything we can do to shave demand will make it easier to run a Froling boiler and associated pumps for radiant heat.

Rusty is on grid (I presume) so the power trade-off is probably not a factor for him when it comes to AFCI breakers. That said, I do wonder how much power is used in order to run GFCI and AFCI breakers, WiFi routers and other 24/7 infrastructure all over the country.