A Publication AFCI manufacturers and CMPs don't want you to read

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romex jockey said:
But you see, i like my trade ,and i'm cursed with scruples. I think you'll find there's many of my sort here, as well as the usual (if not high ratio) of FF/Sparks who have seen the forensic blame game first hand.

That said , i have a complaint , in fact i've had one for nearly 2 decades re; afci technology.
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Yeah, I get it you care, and it bothers you that you have to follow rules you don't like.

Yet nothing you are doing on this forum is any more effective about changing the present sitution than what I am doing about AFCIs, which is nothing.


And yes, the Manufacturers are a phenomenally huge Goliath , but the evidence against them is mounting and our grass roots campaign has put substantial dents in their armor.
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Keep dreaming.

Areas may amend AFCIs out of the NEC as Michagan has but you won't see the NFPA remove AFCIs anytime soon.

All litigant entities and journalist investigations aside, simple word of mouth is a powerful animal down in the 'trenches of the internets'
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You really believe that?

Something has to go viral before anyone really listens and the AFCI issue is not going to go viral. Outside of our industry no one cares about it.
 
iwire said:
Yet this thread is specifically about arc fault breakers which supposedly detect arcs. That tends to make the subject of this thread about arcs.





As I said, the video is not a standard circuit. It was just an example of an arc..
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Ok, sorry, it's my poor English, all my apologize

iwire said:
To me that is not a believable statement.
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For me it is. For almost 30 years I use and everyone know here.

By cons they are not electronic.

Best regards :)
 
Iwire made a point earlier and I'll just jump on it here. As an inspector it is my job to enforce the code, the code making panels decide what will be in the NEC, the NFPA publishes it, the State of California decides that the NEC will be the code that we will enforce and then our jurisdiction is mandated by state law to enforce those codes.

I don't really care what's in there or why. My job is to enforce the codes as written and that's what I do to the best of my ability.

My guess would be that the old timers who installed fuses, probably thought that circuit breakers were the stupidest thing they had ever heard of. And those of us that are old enough remember when GFCI's didn't work at about a 70% fail rate, yet we installed them, of course we didn't have social media at he time, but now GFCI's are a upsell for most electricians, who go along and without question believe that they will save your life. Probably, maybe, should, who knows. I believe that the report will probably just say that someone was electrocuted and not mention whether a GFCI was installed or if it worked properly.

So install your AFCI's and then remove them after inspection, because you don't want to be bothered with the call backs, and then after the fire explain to the judge how much more intelligent you are than the idiots who pushed the AFCI's on you because they don't work anyway.

As far as tin hats go, I wear a 7 1/8.
 
cowboyjwc said:
I don't really care what's in there or why.
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And there in lies the problem. You can still enforce while learning the how and the why behind code. Its essential for an inspector, you see the world in a new light when you know the reasoning behind the rules you verify are being followed.


My guess would be that the old timers who installed fuses, probably thought that circuit breakers were the stupidest thing they had ever heard of. And those of us that are old enough remember when GFCI's didn't work at about a 70% fail rate, yet we installed them, of course we didn't have social media at he time, but now GFCI's are a upsell for most electricians, who go along and without question believe that they will save your life. Probably, maybe, should, who knows. I believe that the report will probably just say that someone was electrocuted and not mention whether a GFCI was installed or if it worked properly.
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In front of an FPE breaker I don't blame them. And fuses still in some way remain superior to breakers. But in all those cases an actual safety benefit was being derived. Breakers prevented pennys from being out behind the fuses, and GFCIs were being put in place to take care of the huge amount of 2 prong appliances with a metal case being used.


So install your AFCI's and then remove them after inspection, because you don't want to be bothered with the call backs, and then after the fire explain to the judge how much more intelligent you are than the idiots who pushed the AFCI's on you because they don't work anyway.
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How will it be proved in court that an arc fault was behind the fire? The judge will have more questions for the NFPA than the contractor who pulled them out.
 
cowboyjwc said:
Iwire made a point earlier and I'll just jump on it here. As an inspector it is my job to enforce the code, the code making panels decide what will be in the NEC, the NFPA publishes it, the State of California decides that the NEC will be the code that we will enforce and then our jurisdiction is mandated by state law to enforce those codes.

I don't really care what's in there or why. My job is to enforce the codes as written and that's what I do to the best of my ability.

My guess would be that the old timers who installed fuses, probably thought that circuit breakers were the stupidest thing they had ever heard of. And those of us that are old enough remember when GFCI's didn't work at about a 70% fail rate, yet we installed them, of course we didn't have social media at he time, but now GFCI's are a upsell for most electricians, who go along and without question believe that they will save your life. Probably, maybe, should, who knows. I believe that the report will probably just say that someone was electrocuted and not mention whether a GFCI was installed or if it worked properly.

So install your AFCI's and then remove them after inspection, because you don't want to be bothered with the call backs, and then after the fire explain to the judge how much more intelligent you are than the idiots who pushed the AFCI's on you because they don't work anyway.

As far as tin hats go, I wear a 7 1/8.
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It always comes back to you comparing AFCIs to GFCIs with you. Everybody knows what a GFCI is, how it works, and what it does. AFCIs are a load of crap jammed into a mini breaker with microchip that by all credible criticism is of no benefit to any of the end users.

A GFCI has no trouble telling what a ground fault is and what isn't. An AFCI can't tell if a dangerous arc is happening in a house or somebody just turning on the TV.
 
ActionDave said:
It always comes back to you comparing AFCIs to GFCIs with you. Everybody knows what a GFCI is, how it works, and what it does. AFCIs are a load of crap jammed into a mini breaker with microchip that by all credible criticism is of no benefit to any of the end users.

A GFCI has no trouble telling what a ground fault is and what isn't. An AFCI can't tell if a dangerous arc is happening in a house or somebody just turning on the TV.
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Yes because GFCI's were a load of crap too jammed into a big old receptacle that didn't fit in a box. And you have no Idea if it's of any benefit to any of the end users. For all you and the others know, AFCI's have saved hundreds of lives.
 
ActionDave said:
It always comes back to you comparing AFCIs to GFCIs with you. Everybody knows what a GFCI is, how it works, and what it does. AFCIs are a load of crap jammed into a mini breaker with microchip that by all credible criticism is of no benefit to any of the end users.

A GFCI has no trouble telling what a ground fault is and what isn't. An AFCI can't tell if a dangerous arc is happening in a house or somebody just turning on the TV.
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Right!

When a great engineer has made a very confidential presentation of this product in 2000, we thought it was a joke. :lol:
But he was serious the great engineer ...
So we explained why the detection of serial arcs could not works...
He did not look happy, the great engineer, but he could not contradict us.
We felt that he knew...
End of meeting...

ICC-
 
cowboyjwc said:
Yes because GFCI's were a load of crap too jammed into a big old receptacle that didn't fit in a box. And you have no Idea if it's of any benefit to any of the end users. For all you and the others know, AFCI's have saved hundreds of lives.
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Cowboy, it is not the same

For all you know AFCIs have saved no lives
 
mbrooke said:
What year did TT become mandatory?
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Hello.

In fact at first there was no difference between french electrical installations and US electrical installations (115 /230 V).

The TT was been mandatory when voltage was increased 115 / 230 to 220 / 380 V (in 1960's years) ( for all dwelling)

In this SLT, Main breaker with differential device are mandatory associated with a ground earh independant of the neutral.

But for other areas we have 4 others SLT in function since décades...And the SLT TN-C-S is close to your US dwellings.

Sorry it's in french but the patterns are understandable :)

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schéma_de_liaison_à_la_terre

Best regards
 
Night and day. I can simulate a ground fault, and I can test a dead circuit to detect a ground fault. GFCIs observe the laws of physics to determine whether to trip or not. AFCIs, on the other hand, cannot be independently verified for function or lack of function.

I have been changing out AFCIs dutifully at an apartment for the last eight months, always after the fridge trips it. I pretend that the AFCI I pulled out was defective and install another, but I have no way to verify that. Even if I sprang for an oscilloscope to get the same information as the AFCI had, it means nothing, even if I received hours of training in its use, because their waveform programming is proprietary.

It is pure 100% snake oil.
 
George Stolz said:
Night and day. I can simulate a ground fault, and I can test a dead circuit to detect a ground fault. GFCIs observe the laws of physics to determine whether to trip or not. AFCIs, on the other hand, cannot be independently verified for function or lack of function.

I have been changing out AFCIs dutifully at an apartment for the last eight months, always after the fridge trips it. I pretend that the AFCI I pulled out was defective and install another, but I have no way to verify that. Even if I sprang for an oscilloscope to get the same information as the AFCI had, it means nothing, even if I received hours of training in its use, because their waveform programming is proprietary.

It is pure 100% snake oil.
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So much said in so few words, thank you. :)
 
George Stolz said:
Night and day. I can simulate a ground fault, and I can test a dead circuit to detect a ground fault. GFCIs observe the laws of physics to determine whether to trip or not. AFCIs, on the other hand, cannot be independently verified for function or lack of function.

I have been changing out AFCIs dutifully at an apartment for the last eight months, always after the fridge trips it. I pretend that the AFCI I pulled out was defective and install another, but I have no way to verify that. Even if I sprang for an oscilloscope to get the same information as the AFCI had, it means nothing, even if I received hours of training in its use, because their waveform programming is proprietary.

It is pure 100% snake oil.
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Hello George Stolz :)

Have you seen by chance the video report from www.aaim.tv by chance ?

Best regards
 
ActionDave said:
Well I sure am glad the NEC is out there for us, making us spend more money, keeping our ul listed refrigerators from running all night, and turning on our vacuum cleaners based on nothing.
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Who speaks for us Dave?

Who is the voice of the 'consumer', when said consumer is so easy to bs

~RJ~
 
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cowboyjwc said:
Yes because GFCI's were a load of crap too jammed into a big old receptacle that didn't fit in a box. And you have no Idea if it's of any benefit to any of the end users. For all you and the others know, AFCI's have saved hundreds of lives.
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Given the number of fires that are said to be of electrical origin and the fact that 85% of these fires occur in dwelling units at least 20 years old that is highly unlikely.

If you run the numbers, and assume that the AFCI would be 100% effective in preventing fires of electrical origin and assume one million new home built in full compliance with the 2014 NEC, you would expect to prevent less than 60 fires in the first year.
 
cowboyjwc said:
Yes because GFCI's were a load of crap too jammed into a big old receptacle that didn't fit in a box.
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And a decade and half (roughly the same time point afci's are at now) after their intro into the code, gfci's were more than proven, reliable, and cheaper too.

There may have been objections to gfcis in the beginning, but were there still reasonable doubts about efficacy/exact purpose in the middle to late 1980's?
In fact, I believe there was something somewhere that had mentioned that in the first couple of decades after their debut, that gfcis had cut the the no. of accidental electrocutions in half.
 
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romex jockey said:
Who speaks for us Dave?

Who is the voice of the 'consumer', when said consumer is so easy to bs

~RJ~
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Nobody cares right now and I don't blame them. People have lives to lead with more important things to worry about. I'm not active at all in any anti AFCI campaign. Grousing about them on this forum is as far as I go. Besides I'm a fatalist, not an activist.
 
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