afci's do their job and some

[FREEBALL]

I expressed the safety of installing an AFCI for some circuits on an old home I was removing an FPE panel from. They were interested and I installed 3 QOafci's well the first one tripped for master bedroom, I traced it back to a gfi in bathroom that was fed from bedroom and fed the range hood in the kitchen, don't want to go there on code but the wiring in the box entailed the ground wired to the neutral the neutral to the ground pigtailed with stranded wire from solid frayed onto the ground, and the neutral insulation melted to the hot conductor. Fixed that. Now the second was wired to a lighting/receptacle circuit. Homeowner would turn foyer light on and afci for living room, separate circ., would trip well right away says shared neutral. Looked into this and the threeway was fed from basement then 2 wire for travelers to second switch and shared neutral from second floor circuit to feed light. I like the fact that AFCI'S do their job and finding these issues when they are installed, I will continue to push them on service upgrades. The job to correct the threeway issue was not approved by the homeowner, and the afci was placed on another circuit within the home. The circuit in question was placed back on a standard qo115, and the circuit was again operable.

 

[GoldDigger]

I expressed the safety of installing an AFCI for some circuits on an old home I was removing an FPE panel from. They were interested and I installed 3 QOafci's well the first one tripped for master bedroom, I traced it back to a gfi in bathroom that was fed from bedroom and fed the range hood in the kitchen, don't want to go there on code but the wiring in the box entailed the ground wired to the neutral the neutral to the ground pigtailed with stranded wire from solid frayed onto the ground, and the neutral insulation melted to the hot conductor. Fixed that. Now the second was wired to a lighting/receptacle circuit. Homeowner would turn foyer light on and afci for living room, separate circ., would trip well right away says shared neutral. Looked into this and the threeway was fed from basement then 2 wire for travelers to second switch and shared neutral from second floor circuit to feed light. I like the fact that AFCI'S do their job and finding these issues when they are installed, I will continue to push them on service upgrades. The job to correct the threeway issue was not approved by the homeowner, and the afci was placed on another circuit within the home. The circuit in question was placed back on a standard qo115, and the circuit was again operable.

I think it is important to recognize that all of the faults the OP found would also have been detected by a GFCI and would NOT have been detected by a GE brand AFCI or any other which does not contain a GF sensing element.

 

[JFletcher]

GFCI breakers would have found the same faults. There are lots of neutrals shared between circuits that shouldnt be, and tho this violates the NEC on paralleling small conductors, in practice it generally creates a more reliable circuit, even if both hots are same phase; it's unlikely to have two resi circuits loaded to capacity. AFCI or GFCI breakers will ofc find these problems, but what is the point of selling them if you cant leave them installed because the existing wiring is too screwed up to fix under the HO's budget?

"The job to correct the threeway issue was not approved by the homeowner, and the afci was placed on another circuit within the home. The circuit in question was placed back on a standard qo115, and the circuit was again operable."

Tho replacing a 60+ yr old FPE panel is always a good thing, I cant imagine too many HOs allowing you a blank check on troubleshooting to ensure any AFCI breakers will work with existing wiring.