AFCI devices-tripping on arc-fault - although it may not be an actual arc-fault

There always has been a difference in electricians skills and abilities. No way could I compete with the ropers one of my employers had, but they didn't know diddly squat about repairing a circuflow or stirator. We both made the boss money.

AI is already changing things. Almost glad I retired.
 
For us its the other trades that come in after the house is ropped, This was a present from the insulation contractor's staple gun. Had to tear out about 30 feet of that tyvec stuff they staple up to find it. If the circuit was not temped on for lights probably would have been buried in the sheetrock.
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pipe_bender said:
For us it’s ve the other trades that come in after the house is ropped, This was a present from the insulation contractor's staple gun. Had to tear out about 30 feet of that tyvec stuff they staple up to find it. If the circuit was not temped on for lights probably would have been buried in the sheetrock.
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I’ve been able to find those within an inch with an Amprobe current tracer and a battery. The afci breaker would not set because the staple was between the ground and neutral.
 
Big issue with the recent gfci changes is the MFG of equipment not keeping up to the requirements so code says you must but equipment say you can't.
 
PCBelarge said:
I did a presentation this week in NYC for electrical contractors.
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I wonder what percentage of all the NM cable manufactured is even sold to and installed by electrical contractors? Not saying that all electrical contractors do a perfect job, just 9 out of 10 I meet hate residential and would rather do commercial or industrial.
And one of the reasons is the competitive nature of residential work.
Every time I go to a big home improvement store I see people lading up on NM cable, homeowners, home re-modelers that 'do it all' all.
the other day saw a guy loading no less than 15 rolls of NM into a truck that advertised home repairs, gutter cleaning, pressure washing and tree service.
 
PCBelarge said:
I also read that the consensus is the technology/AI are moving faster than the CMPs are able to address for the NEC. I can totally believe this, and have been in discussions with these topics for at least 3 years. I do not know the "way" this will be dealt with, but it is going to turn this industry upside-down. The electricians are going to be forced into specific areas of work, whether they like it or not. Education is the only way they will be able to move up the ladder. I see a lot of resistance and the field guys I speak with get decidedly angry with me.
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Well, I believe AI is overrated in this industry, except for taking over the NEC. 😖 No way is it going to be able to do manual work.

Technology is changing, nothing new there. But I don't think it's something that can't be handled the way it's always been handled by us through training and attrition.


PCBelarge said:
A NYC, very large company, is in the process of testing their men and either lowering pay/changing their titles (such as 1st yr journeyman, ETC...) for weak test results or laying them off.
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Does the union have anything to say about that??

-Hal
 
tortuga said:
gutter cleaning, pressure washing and tree service
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While relying on taxes for their livelihood, It blows me away how inspectors, judges, and local officials avoid the sheriff of Nottingham, or building permits with new tax assessments, when it comes to their own property.
 
tortuga said:
I think its reasonable for a AHJ to want better ground fault / arc fault protection than a regular inverse time breaker offers, as a 15 amp breaker requires 45 amps to flow on the equipment ground to trip it in 2 seconds.
A GFPE breaker will trip at or below 30ma in a similar time, and they are available and cost about the same as a AFCI.
I would simply amend the code and allow a GFPE breaker to be used anywhere a AFCI is required.
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What brand and where do you buy them?

QO or HOM are the ones I would typically be using. They go for lowest prices of around $60 for an AFCI and start around $150 for an EPD.

They very well might have a lot of same components and for most part maybe have same cost for materials to build but the price difference is likely simply because of the higher volume sales/higher production levels of AFCI's because there is more demand for those.
 
ptonsparky said:
I know nothing about Unions and don’t want to make it one, but do they offer continuing education programs? Here you would be on your own.
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In Georgia, you are required to take continuing education courses to renew your license. That being said, only one license is required for the entire company. We have no journeyman’s license's.
 
hbiss said:
I don't think you can work in NYC without being a union member.
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Can't or simply not very likely to find a job with a real EC or even an in house industrial electrical staff?

I would think you could still be legitimate self employed contractor and not be a union member. May be set up so that it won't be easy, especially if you want to hire some help.
 
hillbilly1 said:
In Georgia, you are required to take continuing education courses to renew your license. That being said, only one license is required for the entire company. We have no journeyman’s license's.
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What does one have to do to earn that one license that is required? Many other places you need a certain amount of experience to even apply to test for the Jman and then need to have certain amount of experience as Jman to even apply to test for contractor license.
 
kwired said:
I would think you could still be legitimate self employed contractor and not be a union member. May be set up so that it won't be easy, especially if you want to hire some help.
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Sure, but I remember anytime we did any work down there we didn't want to attract any attention. Besides, Pierre was talking about a large NYC contractor.

-Hal
 
kwired said:
What does one have to do to earn that one license that is required? Many other places you need a certain amount of experience to even apply to test for the Jman and then need to have certain amount of experience as Jman to even apply to test for contractor license.
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8000 hours of verifiable OJT with a licensed EC or some combination of school and OJT. Three reference letters.
 
CoolWill said:
I hate AFCIs and have studied the issues with them pretty thoroughly in the field. The vast majority of cases, it is a false trip. Sometimes there is an over-driven staple. Sometimes a ground wire is touching a neutral in a device box. But do you know what is almost never, ever, ever the problem? And actual arcing fault. One instance in 26 years of these things, just one, have I believed it to be an arc fault due to a loose wire but.

The latest thing I dealt with, literally yesterday, was a toaster oven tripping Square D AFCIs. I detailed this in another post. The circuit is good, verified by a Megger. I went so far as to install a brand new circuit solely for the toaster over, to no avail. Other brands of AFCI that I temporarily plugged in don't trip. The Square D algorithm simply doesn't like that toaster. It is a nice new oven with digital controls. I believe that the AFCI is seeing the PWM that the oven is doing to regulate the temperature as an arc fault.

My solution, unpopular with people who take the code as gospel, was to put in a regular breaker after the final inspection. Inspection was Thursday. Yesterday I put in a regular breaker. The solution is to get rid of AFCIs and use GFCI breakers if you want to protect the branch circuit itself. I believe that an arcing fault will develop a ground fault pretty quickly and GFCIs are tried and true at this point.
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Get a surge protector like this one: Minuteman Surge Protector

That is a recommendation from Siemens. Had a wolf toaster oven that was doing the same thing. That fixed it.
 
W@ttson said:
Get a surge protector like this one: Minuteman Surge Protector

That is a recommendation from Siemens. Had a wolf toaster oven that was doing the same thing. That fixed it.
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How did that add on help? Did it make the AFCI less effective? The AFCI obviously is not working as designed. Can I use it with QO, EATON? Why doesn't Siemens incorporate that technology if they know what needs to be added?

Just being hardball.
 
ptonsparky said:
How did that add on help? Did it make the AFCI less effective? The AFCI obviously is not working as designed. Can I use it with QO, EATON? Why doesn't Siemens incorporate that technology if they know what needs to be added?

Just being hardball.
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It completely stopped the nuisance tripping (in that instance and a handful other ones where I did the same trick). The only possible reduction in effectiveness would be between the receptacle and the device, however, I do not think it causes it to be less effect, just smooths out the signature from the device. The AFCI is likely working as designed (not saying that the way it is supposed to be designed would not include nuisance trips), it is just likely that the manufacturer of the device did not follow the best practices guide that Siemens publishes to the manufacturing community to help avoid nuisance trips (they sent me a copy of it). I would assume using similar items for any AFCI manufacturer would help. The effectiveness would likely vary between manufacturers since the algorithms are slightly different but overall the same methods are employed.

They don't add a similar type device to their breakers likely because it adds cost, size, etc. They leave the burden on the device manufacturers to follow their long guide of making compatible devices.

To add to the above, Siemens said that if that Minuteman one didn't work, they could recommend some similar versions that are higher rated.

It really is a travesty the hoops that need to be jumped through to try and get a code compliant install. Especially since the devices are so expensive.
 
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