AFCI and old homes

[maintainer]

Hello all,
I'm a nine year Master Electrician and I have run into a situation here in Florida that I need a little help with. The problem is that insurance companies here have stopped issuing policies for homes over 50 years old due possible electrical wire insulation problems. Even with an electrical inspection report with a conductor insulation rating of "in good condition", unless a AFCI protective system is installed for all feeder conductors. I can not currently find any 60A or 100A two-pole AFCI breakers available. Keep in mind that most residences use a meter-base as it's service main and most 240V appliances and subpanels are feed from the meter-base.
Is there any help available for elevating this problem?

 

[George Stolz]

Re: AFCI and old homes

Even with an electrical inspection report with a conductor insulation rating of "in good condition", unless a AFCI protective system is installed for all feeder conductors.

What insurance company is requiring this? Is this in writing? I believe 15's and 20's are all that are being produced at this point. AFCI's are a questionable technology at this point in time, I find it hard to believe that an electrical professional would recommend that their insurer clients require this.

 

[templdl]

Re: AFCI and old homes

Interesting.
I always was of the belief that if insurance companies started to recognize a benefit from the AFCI that the AFCI would be taken more seriously and such technology wouldn't be questioned as much as it has been.
Insurance companies are big on statistics so if they are discontinuing issuing policies for homes over 50 years old w/0 AFCI protection it would certainly be interesting to see so statistical studies that support that policy. Because if they don't have documentation it would make one concluded that they are discriminating.
Dave

 

[stud696981]

Re: AFCI and old homes

Even if a 60 or 100amp AFCI was available, I would not want one on my house. One fault would kill the entire house......not a good decision.

I wonder if this is just certain companies, or did all go to this in Florida? If they all went to this I would recommend placing them on individual circuits, that way if something goes wrong, only the one circuit goes out. Also I would have my customer sign a special contract form that states I am not responsible for nuisance tripping........any cases of nuisance tripping would be a T&M job to resolve.

 

[maintainer]

Re: AFCI and old homes

Even if a 60 or 100amp AFCI was available, I would not want one on my house. One fault would kill the entire house......not a good decision.

I wonder if this is just certain companies, or did all go to this in Florida? If they all went to this I would recommend placing them on individual circuits, that way if something goes wrong, only the one circuit goes out. Also I would have my customer sign a special contract form that states I am not responsible for nuisance tripping........any cases of nuisance tripping would be a T&M job to resolve.

I am thinking about using the 60 amp 2-poles AFCI for feeders and for fixed appliances (A/C, dryer, etc.). Besides I definitely would want my feeders to shut off, even if it was for the main feeder, if there was a potential for a Arc Fault. :shock:

 

[bthielen]

Because if they don't have documentation it would make one concluded that they are discriminating.

I don't believe that a business' decision to refuse to sell a product could be considered discriminatory. For example, suppose an electrical contractor decided that no residential work would be accepted unless the rest of the home was brought up to code. Would that be a case of discrimination? It's likely the homeowner would tell the contractor to stick it and seek another professional that is willing to do the work without the extra condition.

Likewise, we are not required by law to carry homeowner's insurance nor are we required by law to purchase our insurance from any one particular insurance company. Conversely, it would be ludicrous at best to consider that we might be able to force insurance companies or any other company for that matter to stay in business.

Bob

 

[m8157]

I dont even trust afci yet

 

[jeff43222]

I'd bet the insurance companies have probably noticed the claims they've been paying out for electrical fires have been disproportionally in older houses. If I were the insurance company and saw this kind of thing, I'd probably only insure an old house if it was completely rewired or otherwise had other systems in place to prevent or put out fires.

Glad they don't have that policy here. In my own house, I still have several outlets and switches that are fed with the K&T that was installed in 1922. I'll get around to replacing it someday...

 

[don_resqcapt19]

Dave,

I always was of the belief that if insurance companies started to recognize a benefit from the AFCI that the AFCI would be taken more seriously and such technology wouldn't be questioned as much as it has been.

[FONT=&quot]They would have been taken a lot more seriously if the manufacturer?s hadn't totally misrepresented them and had actually made a product that can do what they promised it could do. There is still not a product on the market that has the protection that was promised some 13 years ago in the original code proposals for this product and there is no sign that they have the technology to make one that meets those original promises.
Don

[/FONT]

 

[cowboyjwc]

That's interesting. From the research I've done as the houses get older the numbers of fires go down. Don't know why.

Age of residence--Number of fires

0-10--91
11-20--157
21-30--168
31-40--115
41-50--61
+50--98

Now here I had a hard time getting insurance for my home that I bought because it had a water claim. After a certain amount of time the claim goes away and they will consider it.

Also if you are only putting an AFCI on the feeders then you are not really doing what the breaker is designed for. I'm sure you all know that a proposal in the 2008 code is that all branch circuits will be protected by a AFCI breaker.

 

[don_resqcapt19]

John,
The research used to show the need for AFCIs said that 85% of the dwelling unit fires of electrical origin were in homes at least 20 years old.
Don

 

[cowboyjwc]

My research shows this:

Age of house
0-10=14%
11-20=23%
21-30=24%
31-40=17%
41-50=9%
50+=13%

Kitchen fires (electrical) account for 38% of the fires
Bedroom fires (electrical) account for 18% of the fires

And you are correct Don at the highest number is houses 21 to 30 years old, but he said that the insurance company(ies) would not insure houses that were 50 years old that hadn't been rewired and the oldest houses are the two lowest numbers.

 

[don_resqcapt19]

John,
That doesn't really match up with what the AFCI supporters used as their data said 85% of the total of the "so called" electrical fires were in dwelling units over 20 years old. I say "so called" because there is no real investigation of most dwelling unit fires and the fire department is under pressure to list a cause...many times "electrical" is listed if they can't clearly identify another cause.
Don

 

[Rockyd]

Cowboy,

This isn't aimed at you, but out here in the southwest I'm amazed that there isn't more fires! Six weeks from lot bought to move in date sometimes on houses.

Skill required to run a nail gun?

GC "Hey kid, ya ever used one of these before"

Kid "Na."

GC "you'll learn, be careful"

Kid "Wow, yesterday couldn't even spell carpenter, and today I is one!"

 

[cowboyjwc]

Well Don I'm not surprised that they don't, but then again I'm not really quoting gospel either. Most of my numbers came from the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Their report breaks it down in many different ways and sometimes I can't make the numbers match up.

They say that their report is from data obtained from the U.S. Fire Administration and the NFPA. You're a smart guy you know I could make these numbers say anything I want depending on what I'm trying to show.

Rockyd: Oh we have the same problem here.

 

[tallgirl]

Alright, there are some EE types around here. Have some patent abstracts --

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6239962.html
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6433978.html
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7003435.html
http://www.patentgenius.com/patent/7106069.html


A published disclosure --

http://www.freshpatents.com/Arc-fault-circuit-interrupter-dt20051117ptan20050254187.php

 

[boater bill]

I'll bet part of the insurance company's game plan is to cut out more Florida homes under their coverage. They say they lost billions of dollars from Charlie, Jeanne, Francis, Ivan, Wilma, etc. What about the billions that were paid into the system before those rude visitors showed up?
I am scared to death what will happen when I get another letter about reduced coverage on my home insurance, or worse.

Someone has gotten to the insurance underwriter regarding the AFCI's who has something to sell and scared them because they don't know the whole story.

If the house has had safe wiring for 50+ years until now, it gets inspected by an experienced professional that puts his license on the line by signing it, then the insurance company should accept it.

 

[dlhoule]

0-10--91
11-20--157
21-30--168
31-40--115
41-50--61
+50--98

Another thing to consider is how many houses fall into each category.