nietzj
Senior Member
- Location
- St. Paul, Minnesota
- Occupation
- Electrician
Is arc fault protection now required for lighting in residential?
Jeff
Jeff
Arc Fault Lighting
- Thread starter nietzj
- Start date
- Status
- Location
- Logan, Utah
Arc fault protection is required for all branch circuits supplying "Outlets" in the areas specified in 210.12. The definition of "Outlet" from Article 100 of the NEC includes lighting outlets. This is not a new change in the NEC as the requirements in the 2002 NEC included the term "Outlet".
Chris
Chris
- Location
- Chapel Hill, NC
- Occupation
- Retired Electrical Contractor
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
- Occupation
- EC
What he was trying to say is that AFCI protection was required for all "outlets" in the rooms mentioned in 210.12. But in 2002 the only "rooms" mentioned in 210.12 was bedrooms.
"Outlets" according to Art 100 definitions included lighting outlets, receptacle outlets, direct connected appliances and even smoke detectors(whether or not smoke detectors applied seemed to be a confusing topic for some at that time).
Later editions of NEC have had more rooms added but still only required protection for "outlets". But now 2014 has added the word "devices" in there as well. This means something like a switch for an exterior light located inside a room listed in 210.12 now needs protected, where before the "outlet" was not in the room and no protection was required for a switch only.
So far AFCI has only been required for 15 or 20 amp circuits operating at 120 volts - that is about the only thing that has stayed the same from the first AFCI requirements.
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