Are afci’s any better?

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czars

Czars
Location
West Melbourne, FL
Occupation
Florida Certified Electrical Contractor
Do anyone have any recent information about whether or not afci’s are now functioning as they were supposed to?
 
I use Eaton BR and can't recall but maybe 1 or 2 calls in the last couple of years. One was just this past week, house was finished in the spring. Customer said his living room breaker trips about once every two months.

I've had issues on remodels where panel is other brand. Microwave drawers don't particularly like GE dual function 20s. Wine chillers apparently don't like Eaton CH df 20s

Each of those brands I've had those same issues 2 different times.
 
My opinion is that there are far fewer nuisance trips with the current generation, but they still provide little, if any, value from a safety perspective.
 
czars said:
Do anyone have any recent information about whether or not afci’s are now functioning as they were supposed to?
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Are you asking about having less unintended trips or about whether or not they actually respond to arcing faults?
 
retirede said:
My opinion is that there are far fewer nuisance trips with the current generation, but they still provide little, if any, value from a safety perspective.
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Yeah I agree. I have had hardly any nuisance trips in the last 5 to 10 years, but I still am not convinced they offer any protection or at least a commensurate amount of protection for what they cost.
 
In my experience they still separate installers from electricians.
We did have a huge issue, at new subdivision got done seeming random houses like at least 10 of them were having random AFCI trips.
After replacing lots of AFCI's and everyone testing this and that speculating about ham radio, turns out it was the "lag screws" they used for the back decks were really long and nicked the home runs, so what the houses had in common was the same deck contractor.
Turns out the deck contractors bolts also went thru the ABS drain pipe.
 
gene6 said:
After replacing lots of AFCI's and everyone testing this and that speculating about ham radio, turns out it was the "lag screws" they used for the back decks were really long and nicked the home runs, so what the houses had in common was the same deck contractor.
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So in this case they actually did their job? How was this finally tracked down?
 
gene6 said:
In my experience they still separate installers from electricians.
We did have a huge issue, at new subdivision got done seeming random houses like at least 10 of them were having random AFCI trips.
After replacing lots of AFCI's and everyone testing this and that speculating about ham radio, turns out it was the "lag screws" they used for the back decks were really long and nicked the home runs, so what the houses had in common was the same deck contractor.
Turns out the deck contractors bolts also went thru the ABS drain pipe.
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Did those AFCI also have GF function as many did?
 
gene6 said:
In my experience they still separate installers from electricians.
We did have a huge issue, at new subdivision got done seeming random houses like at least 10 of them were having random AFCI trips.
After replacing lots of AFCI's and everyone testing this and that speculating about ham radio, turns out it was the "lag screws" they used for the back decks were really long and nicked the home runs, so what the houses had in common was the same deck contractor.
Turns out the deck contractors bolts also went thru the ABS drain pipe.
Click to expand...
I took that to mean crappy install of electrical components vs proper install from. Professional.
Your example kinda does not state that, did I misunderstood what you meant
 
Keep in mind a "dual function" is an AFCI that also has class A GFCI protection.

Nearly all AFCI's incorporated a 30mA GFPE level at one time. Now there are some that have no GFP at all.
 
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