Meeting to discuss the AFCI issues planned by CPSC in Se

[joe tedesco]

Go to a special meeting in September for AFCI's to discuss the subject:

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is holding a public forum on AFCI protection on September 23, 2003.

The meeting will be held at CPSC Headquarters, 4330 East West Highway, Bethesda, MD 20814, 4th floor Hearing Room, from 9:00 AM to 3:30 PM.

If you are interested in attending, please fill out the information on this page and submit it. You will get an immediate on-line confirmation.

http://www.cpsc.gov/afci.html

Purpose and Format of the Meeting

The meeting?s purpose is to solicit ideas for better acquainting the public about the benefits of AFCI protection for electrical circuits and ways to increase consumer awareness that AFCI devices, when combined with good wiring practices, offer the best electrical protection available to reduce deaths and injuries related to home wiring fires.

We plan to hold a morning session with selected presenters and an afternoon session with extensive input from the audience. Presenters will include those with backgrounds in electrical safety, fire safety, and the manufacturing and marketing of electrical products.

AFCIs are new technology designed to prevent electrical fires by sensing unseen electrical arcing. AFCIs are particularly important where wiring may have degraded with age.

The goal of the forum is to provide strategies that can be implemented by the various elements of the electrical/fire safety community. CPSC would like to take full advantage of the technological breakthrough that has resulted in the AFCI, and do so in an expeditious manner.

http://www.cpsc.gov/afci.html

This is the place for all who may have something to add to the subjects surrounding the issues related to the NEC rules.

[ August 30, 2003, 08:53 AM: Message edited by: joe tedesco ]

 

[don_resqcapt19]

Re: Meeting to discuss the AFCI issues planned by CPSC in Se

It appears that the important subjects will not be discussed such as the validity of the statistics used to show the need for AFCIs, the cost effectiveness of them and the large amount of misinformation provided manufactures in getting these devices into the code. I made a proposal (2-122) saying that the required installation of AFCIs is not cost effective and used the same fire loss statistics that were used to show the need for AFCIs. I find it very interesting that CMPs 2 comment said in part "The economic information provided in the substantiation is of a general nature and the data cited has not been substantiated. ..."

AFCIs are particularly important where wiring may have degraded with age.

When you study the actual working details of AFCIs you will find that in most cases the GFP part of the AFCI breaker and not the actual arc detection circuit opens the circuit on a fault. This means that these devices will provide very limited protection for older wiring systems that do not include equipment grounding conductors. With a high resistance fault or glowing connection the AFCI breaker only opens the device when the fault progresses to the point where it becomes a line to grounded conductor fault (parallel arcing fault) or if it progresses to a line to grounding conductor fault or a grounded conductor to grounding conductor fault. These last two progressions are not possible in a wiring system that does not include an EGC. This places a very serious limitation on the effectiveness of AFCIs installed on older wiring systems.
I also have serious questions about the operating life span of the AFCIs. They are not a fail safe device and given the fact that 85% of the dwelling unit fires that have been cited to show the need for AFCIs occurred in dwelling units over 20 years old, I wonder how many 20 year old AFCIs will still be functional.
Don

 

[bennie]

Re: Meeting to discuss the AFCI issues planned by CPSC in Se

I agree with every thing stated by Don.

Unless the device is self indicating for operation, and the sensor is a quick plug in replacement unit, the AFCI is snake oil.

When the sensing unit fails, they will remain in use. If fail safe they will be replaced with conventional breakers.

The cost to the public will outweigh any value for saving property.

 

[Guest]

Re: Meeting to discuss the AFCI issues planned by CPSC in Se

1. Will an AFCI breaker detect its own fault? Will it detect an excessive voltage drop across the AFCI breaker itself? According to breaker manufacturers excessive voltage drop across a circuit breaker will lead to breaker arcing and ultimately fire. Will an AFCI breaker detect this internal breaker fault?

2. There are several things in electrical construction that lead to arc faults. Why not codify those?
a. Backstabbing (back-wiring, quick-wiring, speed-wiring) of devices leads to arcing after a certain number of heat/cool/load/unload cycles. Why not abolish backstabbing? Backstabbed devices are prone to the laws of physics and over time they must fail and start arcing.

b. Contamination of the panel bus. How about codifying that one must mask off breaker panels prior to spraying wall textures, paint, etc.? Contamination of the bus causes the circuit breakers (including AFCI) breakers to arc. Make masking the panel enclosures or removal of the bus during painting/texturing.

I am sure those more active than me can come up with a lot of simple precautions that should be codified in place of or in addition to the AFCI circuit requirements. AFCI does not appear to be ready for prime time. It's a fabulous concept, but not ready to be codified.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it

 

[iwire]

Re: Meeting to discuss the AFCI issues planned by CPSC in Se

Originally posted by awwt:
How about codifying that one must mask off breaker panels prior to spraying wall textures, paint, etc.? Contamination of the bus causes the circuit breakers (including AFCI) breakers to arc.

I would respectfully disagree with who's problem this should be.

As we are electricians we are not the ones working the spray gun.

I expect and the GCs we work for expect the trades to respect each others work and not cause damage to it.

The painters know if they paint windows, furniture, finished floors, etc. that they will clean or pay for it, the same applies for our electric equipment.

Most of our contract documents have language in them that makes it clear that one trade damaging another trades work will pay the cost to repair.

In the jobs I work now this works perfectly, when I worked on smaller dwelling units the painters where hacks and would paint anything.

If I was to go back to that I would still try to push it onto the painters after all masking is part of their job.

I would say the code is clear now and if it is enforced the problems you describe would not happen.

Bob

 

[joe tedesco]

Re: Meeting to discuss the AFCI issues planned by CPSC in Se

Just a reminder! How many people can be saved from the fire hazards that caused these fires?

1998
Residential Fire
Loss Estimates
U.S. National Estimates of Fires,
Deaths, Injuries and Property
Losses from Non-Incendiary,
Non-Suspicious Fires

http://www.cpsc.gov/library/fire98.pdf

[ September 01, 2003, 05:32 PM: Message edited by: joe tedesco ]

 

[bennie]

Re: Meeting to discuss the AFCI issues planned by CPSC in Se

How many people have been saved by the bombs that do not explode?

The statistics will not change. Most of the dwelling fires would not have the AFCI if they were introduced 20 years ago.

How many fires are proven to be from arcing faults?

This arc fault breaker is fantasy. This is a better scam than the Nigerian money laundering scheme.

 

[don_resqcapt19]

Re: Meeting to discuss the AFCI issues planned by CPSC in Se

Joe,
Those are part of the same fire loss statistics that I used in my proposal to delete 110.12 and were also used in the '99 and '02 code cycles to show the need for AFCIs, but when I applied some logic to these numbers, CMP2 said, "data cited has not been substantiated ...
Don

 

[rong111]

Re: Meeting to discuss the AFCI issues planned by CPSC in Se

argh. in a post i made here a short time ago i was looking for someone to talk me out of purchasing these. you didn't state anything here i did not already know. i just hope they do not fail at $42 each. i had a lot of split recepts with shared neutral. so now i have to ask myself if it was even worth the trouble.

but i would like to share with you what most likely really causes fires in dwellings! i do heavy industrial work for a living. but i do residential trouble shooting for friends and family. i see things almost once a week that makes my skin crawl. i just dont think an afci is going to save everyone from their blatent abuse of electricty! the following is not a joke! i was in a home yesterday that had 2 single pole breakers rigged to operate as a double pole. and as if that was not bad enough there was exposed #14 hot wire spliced with a paper clip(not kidding) behind a medicine cabinet with masking tape to hold it. afci's will not save people from very poor workmanship, which i think is the real cause of most home fires.

ron g.