AFCI satisfaction poll. Please take a moment to answer.

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AFCI satisfaction poll. Please take a moment to answer.


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    104
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don_resqcapt19

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Illinois
Occupation
retired electrician
Maybe we can get a bunch of cable manufacturers together to influence the Chicago code so we can get that rule changed. :lol::lol:
It would be much easier to get the NEC to delete AFCIs than to get Chicago to permit cable wiring methods:)
 

fisherelectric

Senior Member
Location
Northern Va
I wonder if those who seem to believe AFCIs have made people safer from electrical fires can offer up any kind of verified statistical proof that they have reduced the number of house fires since their introduction in (I believe) the 1999 NEC. Or even any proof that they work as claimed by the manufacturer.
 

romex jockey

Senior Member
Location
Vermont
Occupation
electrician
Too many variables exist to quantify fire stats Fisher,

that said entities exist that forward what they have harvested

that some take it as verbatim is just plain wrong.

~RJ~
 

don_resqcapt19

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Illinois
Occupation
retired electrician
I wonder if those who seem to believe AFCIs have made people safer from electrical fires can offer up any kind of verified statistical proof that they have reduced the number of house fires since their introduction in (I believe) the 1999 NEC. Or even any proof that they work as claimed by the manufacturer.
Even if the AFCI can do every thing we are told it can do and even if prevented 100% of the dwelling unit fires that are said to be of electrical origin, it would be a long time before the number of fires would be statistically significant.

There are ~131,7 million dwelling units in the US.

There are ~370,000 dwelling unit fires per year the last few years.( note, that is about 50% of the number of dwelling unit fires that occurred in 1980...there was a steady drop between 1980 and 2000, with very small drops since then)

Of those 370,000 fires about 48,100 of them are said to be of electrical origin. (13% of the total dwelling unit fires)

That is a rate of ~365 dwelling unit fires per million housing units per year

~85% of the dwelling unit fires that are said to be of electrical origin are in dwelling units that are over 20 years old

That is a rate of ~55 dwelling unit electrical fires per million new dwelling units per year

There were ~1,080,000 new housing units built in the US in 2014

Assuming that the AFCI would prevent 100% of the electrical fires in all of the new housing units built in 2014 you could expect to prevent ~59 fires that first year of full compliance with the 2014 code. (note the 2014 code does not require AFCI protection of all dwelling unit circuits, so the actual number of fires prevented would be less than 59)
 

peter d

Senior Member
Location
New England
~85% of the dwelling unit fires that are said to be of electrical origin are in dwelling units that are over 20 years old

That is a rate of ~55 dwelling unit electrical fires per million new dwelling units per year

To carry your point a bit further, how many dwelling unit fires occur in new dwellings due to the premises wiring system? I would speculate that number is extremely small. These "electrical fires" in new dwellings were likely the result of "beyond the outlet" issues.
 

romex jockey

Senior Member
Location
Vermont
Occupation
electrician
It's not even on the forensic radar Pete.

You have to understand that many 'electrical fires' are simply concluded on a smoking cellar hole, with nobody having been home during the incident

That's how fast / loose it all is

~RJ~
 

peter d

Senior Member
Location
New England
It's not even on the forensic radar Pete.

You have to understand that many 'electrical fires' are simply concluded on a smoking cellar hole, with nobody having been home during the incident

That's how fast / loose it all is

~RJ~

Yes, and I've said before that I trust fire statistics as far as I can throw a box of hard cover NEC's.
 

romex jockey

Senior Member
Location
Vermont
Occupation
electrician
I agree Pete

Fwiw, a space heater caused this.....>

BOINT_zpsgd0zckwd.jpg


~RJ~
 

Dennis Alwon

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Chapel Hill, NC
Occupation
Retired Electrical Contractor
I would class that as an electrical distribution system fire if it had caused a fire.

Yeah but around here the fd would call that an electrical fire. I used to be on a vol. fireman for a short period and we sometime ran into the power to be who determined the cause of the fire. We had one fire where the owners piled a bunch of boxes and sheets next to a baseboard heater and the room caught fire. Guess what they wrote it up as....? I complained but to no avail- I would attribute it to ignorance or stupidity.
 

don_resqcapt19

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Illinois
Occupation
retired electrician
...f the fire. We had one fire where the owners piled a bunch of boxes and sheets next to a baseboard heater and the room caught fire. Guess what they wrote it up as....? I complained but to no avail- I would attribute it to ignorance or stupidity.
One of the reasons that I don't see a need for AFCIs....a huge number of fires that have been reported as electrical, were not really electrical. I
have seen fire reports with the cause listed as electrical and there wasn't even power to the building.
 

GoldDigger

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Placerville, CA, USA
Occupation
Retired PV System Designer
One of the reasons that I don't see a need for AFCIs....a huge number of fires that have been reported as electrical, were not really electrical. I
have seen fire reports with the cause listed as electrical and there wasn't even power to the building.
A shared open neutral and a neutral to ground leakage fault can cause a fire even with all of the ungrounded conductors open. (Film in another thread)
 

don_resqcapt19

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Illinois
Occupation
retired electrician
A shared open neutral and a neutral to ground leakage fault can cause a fire even with all of the ungrounded conductors open. (Film in another thread)
By no power, I don't mean a pulled meter or something like that...I mean no physical connection to a utility.
 

peter d

Senior Member
Location
New England
A shared open neutral and a neutral to ground leakage fault can cause a fire even with all of the ungrounded conductors open. (Film in another thread)


Yes, that was the video from the Miami Fire Department documenting various open neutral cases that caused a fire department response when the pyrophoric carbonization finally ignited. An AFCI is powerless to stop pyrophoric carbonization.
 

jap

Senior Member
Occupation
Electrician
I feel like the electricians that go to troubleshoot AFCI circuits should just move into the house where the problem is.
It seems you can't ever get them to trip while your there trying to find out what the actuall problem might have been.


JAP>
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
I feel like the electricians that go to troubleshoot AFCI circuits should just move into the house where the problem is.
It seems you can't ever get them to trip while your there trying to find out what the actuall problem might have been.


JAP>
Still won't work for those that are hardly ever home:happyyes:
 
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