AFCI, GFCI, AFCI/GFCI circuit breakers

G

Greg1707

Senior Member
Location
Alexandria, VA
Occupation
Business owner Electrical contractor
Virginia adopted NEC 2000 in Janurary. I am now dealing with the new requirements for AFCI etc. There are requirements for AFCI. There are requirements for GFCI etc.
Given the prices for all of these breakers are about the same, should I just put AFCI/GFCI breaker on all circuits requiring such protection?
It would seem to make life easier?
 
Greg1707 said:
Virginia adopted NEC 2000 in Janurary. I am now dealing with the new requirements for AFCI etc. There are requirements for AFCI. There are requirements for GFCI etc.
Given the prices for all of these breakers are about the same, should I just put AFCI/GFCI breaker on all circuits requiring such protection?
It would seem to make life easier?
Click to expand...
In general, AFCIs seem to have more issues than the GFCI, so using a dual function may increase the chance of call backs. Tough call I don't have to make.


Retired.
 
Greg1707 said:
Virginia adopted NEC 2000 in Janurary. I am now dealing with the new requirements for AFCI etc. There are requirements for AFCI. There are requirements for GFCI etc.
Given the prices for all of these breakers are about the same, should I just put AFCI/GFCI breaker on all circuits requiring such protection?
It would seem to make life easier?
Click to expand...
If I were still in business today, I would only use the DF breakers for all 15 and 20 amp circuits. They CMP's are making it so that every circuit has to be either GFCI, AFCI, or both! If you do a lot of houses, your warehouse manager will have fits on keeping up with ordering. There are a lot of rejections and re-inspect fees where guys are getting mixed up on what needs what protection. Do a good take-off of your finish materials on jobs and you wont have too much overstock on trucks and shelves. The goal of the NEMA members of the CMP's seem to be trying to make the codes so ridiculous that we do exactly this so it puts more jingle in their pockets! Good luck.
 
Greg1707 said:
Being new this I purchased 10 AFCI Combination breakers for a remodeling project. I assumed "combination" meant dual function.
Click to expand...
Combination just means the breakers protect (supposedly) both series and parallel arcs. They are the ones required now vs the old ones that only protected for one type of arc. what you should look for is DF breakers. DF=Dual function, which means both AFCI and GFCI.
For areas like the living room, I just use straight AFCI, but could use the DF. I use the DF in bedrooms since lots of times an outside receptacle is fed from there. The DF would cover the GFCI requirement for the outside receptacle. Of course kitchens require both AFCI & GFCI so the DF is used there.
 
Suppose I was adding one new receptacle from an existing circuit.

What is the cheapest way to comply with the requirements?
 
Greg1707 said:
Virginia adopted NEC 2000 in Janurary. I am now dealing with the new requirements for AFCI etc. There are requirements for AFCI. There are requirements for GFCI etc.
Given the prices for all of these breakers are about the same, should I just put AFCI/GFCI breaker on all circuits requiring such protection?
It would seem to make life easier?
Click to expand...
Is this a typo? If not you are about to be 26 years behind the newest code.
 
Little Bill said:
Combination just means the breakers protect (supposedly) both series and parallel arcs. They are the ones required now vs the old ones that only protected for one type of arc. what you should look for is DF breakers. DF=Dual function, which means both AFCI and GFCI.
For areas like the living room, I just use straight AFCI, but could use the DF. I use the DF in bedrooms since lots of times an outside receptacle is fed from there. The DF would cover the GFCI requirement for the outside receptacle. Of course kitchens require both AFCI & GFCI so the DF is used there.
Click to expand...
Can I install AFCI breakers and then install GFCI receptacles on those circuits as needed?
 
Greg1707 said:
Virginia adopted NEC 2000 in Janurary. I am now dealing with the new requirements for AFCI etc. There are requirements for AFCI. There are requirements for GFCI etc.
Given the prices for all of these breakers are about the same, should I just put AFCI/GFCI breaker on all circuits requiring such protection?
It would seem to make life easier?
Click to expand...
Maybe 15 years ago a very knowledgeable Square D engineer told me that from what he heard that all residential type AFCI circuit breakers had some type if unadvertised GFCI protection with some setting the GFCI trip current from the usual 4 to 6 milliamps trip a much higher level. All the different manufacturers of AFCI single pole breaker in big box store are dual rated AFCI / GFCI. We had about 30 20 amp single pole circuit breakers jnstalled in a new 10 person behaviour unit at a hospital. For some reason from day one a few different AFCI breakers would trip every week. I printed out a paper for zone mechanic way to identify what caused the trip ( overload, ground fault, arc fault or dead short ) but they just reset the breakers. We broke their stones by making up a phony breaker trip paper that stated they had to check beakers every hour, sign & place time performed. Only lasted a couple of days until they turned in a full page to their boss.
 
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