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Arc Fault Circuit Breakers AFCI

Arc Fault Circuit Interrupters (AFCI) protect against a fire being started from an unintended arc. Annually, over 40,000 fires are attributed to home electrical wiring. These fires result in over 350 deaths and over 1,400 injuries each year*. Arcing faults are one of the major causes of these fires. An arc fault occurs when a current-carrying conductor has an arching condition to ground or another conductor. Damaged insulation, for example, can lead to an arc fault, which may not generate enough fault current to trip a circuit breaker.

An AFCI device is intended to provide protection from the effects of arc faults by recognizing the characteristics unique to arcing and de-energizing the circuit when an arc fault is detected. The arc generated will cause the AFCI to trip. Arcs normally generated from electric equipment such as a light switch or power drill will not cause the AFCI to trip.

Arc-Fault Circuit Interrupter protection was first introduced in the 1999 National Electrical Code®. NEC® Article 210.12 and has an effective date of 2002. This requirement applies to all branch circuits that supply 125-volt, single-phase, 15- and 20-amp receptacle outlets installed in dwelling unit bedrooms.

This type of circuit breaker could be used on all 120v circuits in your home. This device would also be great in older homes where the wiring junctions and old devices may have bad connections whether at wire nut joints or device screw terminals. Here's the drawback, the cost of a regular circuit breaker is less than $5, the cost on a single pole AFCI breaker is over $40. This could get very expensive.

* Ault, Singh, and Smith, “1996 Residential Fire Loss Estimates”