AFCI Breaker And GFCI Receptacle ?

Bubbles

Lately, we had a rash of very frugal customers. They did not want to do a re-wire and had old wiring (cloth) and very iffy j-box connections all over. Never thought of it til recently but would a AFCI Breaker and then GFCI receptacle box downstream above Service panel solve both problems of old loose connections and the 2 wire dilemma?? Or would electronics interfere with one another.

mdshunk

No problems whatsoever, and a good stop-gap solution. If you use much Cutler-Hammer equipment, they even have a combination AFCI-GFCI breaker that's the same price as the AFCI breaker.

Consequently, the present generation of AFCI's do not help with loose connections. Your house can still burn down on a AFCI protected circuit if there's a loose connection. They don't pick up series arcing faults. They presently only identify parallel arcing faults.

jrclen

I have no experience with AFCI's as they are not required in my state yet. But, I heard they would trip from a vacuum cleaner being unplugged while running. That would seem to me to be 2 series arcs as the plug was pulled. Did I hear wrong or am I confused again? Thanks.

mdshunk

You heard wrong. Those are series arcs, and would not be detected.

Some vacuum cleaners, on the other hand, do occasionally trip AFCI's. This has mostly been found to be because of carbon brush buildup on/in the motor causing occasional parallel arcing signatures to be observed by the AFCI.

jrclen

Thanks for the info. I appreciate it.

Bubbles

I've also noticed alot of ceiling fans/clock radios kicking out the afci. The owners are usually not happy with solution. Is is the cheaper the fan the more afci's kick? I had a feeling someone made a afci/gfci. Thats nice if I get a call for CH panels. Its a 1:5 crapshoot. Is is the BR or CH model?

JohnJ0906

This is the reply I received from Square D regarding a vacuum tripping an AFCI

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John from Baltimore
"One Day at a Time"
All replies based on the 2008 NEC

Sparky Joe

starting the vacuum in the high carpet setting nearly eliminates the load when starting(unless starting on high carpet, and can also be done by tilting the vacuum back when turning it on so the beater bar is not touching anything)

But the statement of elimenating startup surge, aka inrush current, is not possible. Inrush cannot be eliminated, but can be greatly reduced by starting a motor under no load, or in this case the beater bar not beating anything.