AFCI w/ GFCI receptacle

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Paul B

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Has anyone put a GFCI recept on a Arc Fault circuit? I have a situation where a sill-light is is in a bathroom window. It is on a AFCI circuit. Can I put a GFCI ahead of it?

Paul
 
Didn't for me. We had a hehumidifier in a basement on a dedicated 20 amp circuit. Well it was not labled and ended up on a ach fault breaker and of course the receptacle was a gfci. The gfci kept on tripping out and when the gfci tripped out the ach fault would trip out. We changed over to a reg. breaker and all was fine no more tripping on the gfci. But than again perhaps that was just the ach fault I had. We all know how corky they are!
 
dSilanskas said:
Didn't for me. We had a hehumidifier in a basement on a dedicated 20 amp circuit. Well it was not labled and ended up on a ach fault breaker and of course the receptacle was a gfci. The gfci kept on tripping out and when the gfci tripped out the ach fault would trip out. We changed over to a reg. breaker and all was fine no more tripping on the gfci. But than again perhaps that was just the ach fault I had. We all know how corky they are!
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Was that with, or without a load connected?
 
Paul B said:
Has anyone put a GFCI recept on a Arc Fault circuit? I have a situation where a sill-light is is in a bathroom window. It is on a AFCI circuit. Can I put a GFCI ahead of it?
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"Sill light" is what we call "window candles" here. In fact, that's generally where I need to AFCI and GFCI a circuit; for window candles. There are combination AFCI/GFCI breakers now, but I don't know if they're the "combination type" (series and parallel arc). Cutler Hammer made a lot of cool AFCI's, but very few of them are planned for manufacture as the combination type, which I'm pretty bummed about.
 
GFCI-AFCI combined in Bathroom

GFCI-AFCI combined in Bathroom

Paul B said:
Has anyone put a GFCI recept on a Arc Fault circuit? I have a situation where a sill-light is is in a bathroom window. It is on a AFCI circuit. Can I put a GFCI ahead of it?

Paul
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Hi Paul,
Maybe I am missing something here. Why would you need a GFCI if the AFCI BC sill-light in the Bathroom is direct wired and not connected to a receptacle? rbj
 
Sill Light

Sill Light

I am not sure if the sill-light term is synonymous to 'night light' as the same...so that's the reason for my dumb question. rbj
 
gndrod said:
I am not sure if the sill-light term is synonymous to 'night light' as the same...so that's the reason for my dumb question. rbj
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They all plug in by some means, even if they appear to be hardwired. They may not all be cord and plug connected (lacking a cord on some styles), but the connect to a receptacle just the same.
 
gndrod said:
Hi Paul,
Maybe I am missing something here. Why would you need a GFCI if the AFCI BC sill-light in the Bathroom is direct wired and not connected to a receptacle? rbj
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Yes as stated the sill light is a receptacle that the candle sets in. Could possibly be used for something else.
 
If the "sill light" is in the bathroom, why would it need to be AFCI protected? I agree that it should work just fine, but bathrooms are not listed in 210.12(B) as an area that requires AFCI protection. If it is not in the bathroom, why does it need GFCI protection. I see no reason for a receptacle to require both types of protection....
 
Here is a sill lite candle recep.

StepSCR.jpg



Here are the candles plugged into two recep.

Golden-Beeswax-lg.jpg
 
haskindm said:
If the "sill light" is in the bathroom, why would it need to be AFCI protected? I agree that it should work just fine, but bathrooms are not listed in 210.12(B) as an area that requires AFCI protection. If it is not in the bathroom, why does it need GFCI protection. I see no reason for a receptacle to require both types of protection....
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Most of the time people want a sill light in every window on the front of the house(or something).

So maybe there is a window in the living room one in a bathroom and one in a bedroom all switched together. Then the rec in the bathroom will need GFCI protected and the rec in the bedroom will need AFCI protection.
 
haskindm said:
If the "sill light" is in the bathroom, why would it need to be AFCI protected? I agree that it should work just fine, but bathrooms are not listed in 210.12(B) as an area that requires AFCI protection. If it is not in the bathroom, why does it need GFCI protection. I see no reason for a receptacle to require both types of protection....
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It's one timer controlled circuit for all the window candles in the whole house. This circuit weaves its way through most every room of the house; some requiring GFCI protection and some requiring AFCI protection.

A wet bar in a master bedroom is another time you need to AFCI and GFCI the same circuit.
 
mdshunk said:
It's one timer controlled circuit for all the window candles in the whole house. This circuit weaves its way through most every room of the house; some requiring GFCI protection and some requiring AFCI protection.

A wet bar in a master bedroom is another time you need to AFCI and GFCI the same circuit.
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That is exactly it, one timer for the second floor of the house on a AF because of the bedrooms and the other timer for the rest of the house.
 
mdshunk said:
It's one timer controlled circuit for all the window candles in the whole house. This circuit weaves its way through most every room of the house.
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IMPOSSIBLE! Everyone knows you can't have more than 13 outlets on a circuit. :wink:
 
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