- Location
- Illinois
- Occupation
- retired electrician
It would be much easier to get the NEC to delete AFCIs than to get Chicago to permit cable wiring methods
AFCI satisfaction poll. Please take a moment to answer.
- Thread starter iwire
- Start date
- Status
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~
that said entities exist that forward what they have harvested
that some take it as verbatim is just plain wrong.
~RJ~
- Location
- Illinois
- Occupation
- retired electrician
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
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~
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
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.....>
~RJ~
Fwiw, a space heater caused this.....>
~RJ~
- Location
- Illinois
- Occupation
- retired electrician
I would class that as an electrical distribution system fire if it had caused a fire.I agree Pete
Fwiw, a space heater caused this.....>
~RJ~
- Location
- Chapel Hill, NC
- Occupation
- Retired Electrical Contractor
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.
peter d
Senior Member
- Location
- New England
- Location
- Illinois
- Occupation
- retired electrician
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.
- Location
- Placerville, CA, USA
- Occupation
- Retired PV System Designer
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)
- Location
- Illinois
- Occupation
- retired electrician
By no power, I don't mean a pulled meter or something like that...I mean no physical connection to a utility.
- Location
- Placerville, CA, USA
- Occupation
- Retired PV System Designer
Must have been those darned homeless folk with their off-grid solar systems.:angel:
peter d
Senior Member
- Location
- New England
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.
peter d
Senior Member
- Location
- New England
As of tonight, 81% are dissatisfied on some level with the NEC. That's hardly a ringing endorsement.
romex jockey
Senior Member
- Location
- Vermont
- Occupation
- electrician
Yet CMP-2 is all high 5's with the '17 horizon including them on everything.......~RJ~
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
- Occupation
- EC
- Status