Arc faults breakers and GFCI receptacle trouble

Status
Not open for further replies.

jandon

Member
Location
Chicago, Il. USA
I installed a living room power circuit using all GFCI receptacles. By code, I had to feed the gfci outlets with an arc fault breaker. For some reason the arc fault breaker keeps tripping every time I energize the circuit. I replaced the arc fault breaker with a normal breaker and the trouble goes away, Breaker no longer trips. I'm a little baffled as to what the cause of the arc fault tripping might be. Not sure if GFI's are causing arc faults to trip. Any thoughts comments.....
Thank you in advance!
 

ActionDave

Chief Moderator
Staff member
Location
Durango, CO, 10 h 20 min from the winged horses.
Occupation
Licensed Electrician
.... For some reason the arc fault breaker keeps tripping every time I energize the circuit. I replaced the arc fault breaker with a normal breaker and the trouble goes away, Breaker no longer trips. I'm a little baffled as to what the cause of the arc fault tripping might be.
Bootleg neutral, wrong neutral connected to the AFCI breaker, neutral to EGC fault somewhere in the circuit, shared neutral on MWBC. None of these trip a regular breaker. All of them can trip an AFCI.
Not sure if GFI's are causing arc faults to trip....
No, AFCI's and GFCI's get along fine.
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
It was for a small recording studio and that's what customer requested.

Is it a living room in a dwelling or a recording studio? The living room in a dwelling would require AFCI, a recording studio would not, neither would normally require any GFCI's unless maybe there was a sink in the room.
 

K8MHZ

Senior Member
Location
Michigan. It's a beautiful peninsula, I've looked
Occupation
Electrician
I installed a living room power circuit using all GFCI receptacles. By code, I had to feed the gfci outlets with an arc fault breaker. For some reason the arc fault breaker keeps tripping every time I energize the circuit. I replaced the arc fault breaker with a normal breaker and the trouble goes away, Breaker no longer trips. I'm a little baffled as to what the cause of the arc fault tripping might be. Not sure if GFI's are causing arc faults to trip. Any thoughts comments.....
Thank you in advance!

Have you tried replacing the suspect AFCI with a different AFCI?
 

augie47

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Tennessee
Occupation
State Electrical Inspector (Retired)
Check closely for all the items Actiondave listed in Post #4.
Does the circuit trip with no lads connected or only with equipment connected ??
 

Jon456

Senior Member
Location
Colorado
I installed a living room power circuit using all GFCI receptacles. By code, I had to feed the gfci outlets with an arc fault breaker.
I don't understand the need for all the receptacles to be GFCIs. Since all these receptacles are on a common branch circuit, why not install just one GFCI at the first receptacle and then feed all the remaining receptacles from the load terminals off that one GFCI?
 

Dennis Alwon

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Chapel Hill, NC
Occupation
Retired Electrical Contractor
You have an issue with the wiring. Start half way thru the circuit and disconnect the last half of the circuit. If that works then the problem is after that point. If not go half the half until you find the problem wire or connection.
 

rtanner

Member
Location
Washington DC
LED or LV Lights might be the issue

LED or LV Lights might be the issue

We discovered on some of our apartment projects, LED or Low Voltage lamps, their drivers tend to cause noise on the circuit affecting AFCI devices - once we separated the receptacles and lighting, everything was fine again
 

bullheimer

Senior Member
Location
WA
You have an issue with the wiring. Start half way thru the circuit and disconnect the last half of the circuit. If that works then the problem is after that point. If not go half the half until you find the problem wire or connection.

then remove wall plates, shove bare wire to the back of the box with th end of a flat screwdriver, try again. good luck. i think i've also had the issue in the post above, too
 

Little Bill

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Tennessee NEC:2017
Occupation
Semi-Retired Electrician
??? Wouldn't a GFCI also trip if there were shared neutrals or grounds and neutrals touching? I'm pretty sure the GFCI portion of AFCI breakers is what causes tripping when these things exist.
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
I have noticed that it is pretty easy for a bare equipment grounding conductor supplying a typical 15 or 20 amp 125 volt duplex receptacle to come into contact with the neutral terminal. It is usually attached to the same side of the device as the neutral terminals, and can easily come in contact if not paying close attention when pushing the device into the box for mounting.

Prior to AFCI requirements this likely happened more than people realized, but nothing ever tripped to expose the problem unless you were on a GFCI protected circuit.
 

eprice

Senior Member
Location
Utah
??? Wouldn't a GFCI also trip if there were shared neutrals or grounds and neutrals touching? I'm pretty sure the GFCI portion of AFCI breakers is what causes tripping when these things exist.

The OP mentions every receptacle being gfci. I'm guessing these receptacles are all pig tailed, thus none of them are protecting any of the circuit but what is plugged into them. The gfci receptacles will not trip due to a ground/neutral connection on their line side, but the breaker will see it and trip.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top