AFCI in Florida

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peter d

Senior Member
Location
New England
My parents have a new house in Florida. For some reason, the EC installed AFCI breakers on the garage and outdoor receptacle circuits. These circuits do not feed any interior receptacles in areas where AFCI is required. I looked at some of the other houses in the development and it was the same. Is there some Florida code for this, or is it just a matter of the EC not understanding the code correctly? It's a tract house that was wired by a huge company that does work all over Florida, so if they are doing this when they don't need to on all the houses they wire, they are wasting an awful lot of money.
 

mgookin

Senior Member
Location
Fort Myers, FL
My parents have a new house in Florida. For some reason, the EC installed AFCI breakers on the garage and outdoor receptacle circuits. These circuits do not feed any interior receptacles in areas where AFCI is required. I looked at some of the other houses in the development and it was the same. Is there some Florida code for this, or is it just a matter of the EC not understanding the code correctly? It's a tract house that was wired by a huge company that does work all over Florida, so if they are doing this when they don't need to on all the houses they wire, they are wasting an awful lot of money.

They were AFCI's. There were receptacle GFCI's protecting the rest of the circuit.

Sarasota county.

Anybody in southwest Florida want to take a stab at this?

Sure!

One could only speculate what happened.

If it were a safety issue it would be worth digging into. But then you need to find the permit to build the house, find the date of application, verify the code edition in effect on date of application, find out what code edition applied on that date, search the state database for an amendment to that code edition for that jurisdiction, etc...

Let's just agree it's odd but not dangerous.

Maybe someone else will come along with a better response.

Just curious - are all branch circuits on AFCI breakers?
 

peter d

Senior Member
Location
New England
Sure!

One could only speculate what happened.

If it were a safety issue it would be worth digging into. But then you need to find the permit to build the house, find the date of application, verify the code edition in effect on date of application, find out what code edition applied on that date, search the state database for an amendment to that code edition for that jurisdiction, etc...

Let's just agree it's odd but not dangerous.

Maybe someone else will come along with a better response.

Just curious - are all branch circuits on AFCI breakers?

Just the ones required by the 2011 NEC.
 

chris1971

Senior Member
Location
Usa
My parents have a new house in Florida. For some reason, the EC installed AFCI breakers on the garage and outdoor receptacle circuits. These circuits do not feed any interior receptacles in areas where AFCI is required. I looked at some of the other houses in the development and it was the same. Is there some Florida code for this, or is it just a matter of the EC not understanding the code correctly? It's a tract house that was wired by a huge company that does work all over Florida, so if they are doing this when they don't need to on all the houses they wire, they are wasting an awful lot of money.

Local requirement?:? Call the AHJ.:thumbsup:
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
Outside of some local requirement having an impact, the EC probably bid as few AFCI's possible to get the job, but maybe his installers messed up. Since there is no code violation they remained after inspection, and the EC is left wondering where all those AFCI's got installed that he got billed for from his supplier.
 

Cavie

Senior Member
Location
SW Florida
I'm next door in Charlotte County. I haven't heard of that requirement. Sarasota has no Local codes. Straight from NEC. Do a little work in Sarasota. Did they have the AF in the rest of the required areas?
 

Hendrix

Senior Member
Location
New England
My parents have a new house in Florida. For some reason, the EC installed AFCI breakers on the garage and outdoor receptacle circuits. These circuits do not feed any interior receptacles in areas where AFCI is required. I looked at some of the other houses in the development and it was the same. Is there some Florida code for this, or is it just a matter of the EC not understanding the code correctly? It's a tract house that was wired by a huge company that does work all over Florida, so if they are doing this when they don't need to on all the houses they wire, they are wasting an awful lot of money.

The NEC is a minimum standard:D
 
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