You’re quite welcome. The best way to verify that is to look at the panelboard/fuseboard location for the bare ground, which should be wrapped around, and visible in, the corrugation valleys and extend a half wrap or so beyond the connector.
One common error observed when DIYers terminate type AC is using the wrong connector. Both connectors for type NM and type MC use two screws, while the type AC connector uses one, which will engage the corrugation tangentially, as well as the grounding conductor when properly secured.
I am not going to worry about getting AFCI breakers installed, since that was done when I had my entire house rewired before I moved in. It really sucked, since I had budgeted the money to move and upgrade the box (A fuse box in a closet in the bathroom) but when the electrician was going over the place, we found a mixture of wiring, from knob & tube on up to modern. It is nice to have good wiring, but I could have used the extra $4000 for my garage roof.
But after reading this thread, I now know what AFCI means, so that is good.
I was warned away from them by a local electrician. For the bedroom type of wiring anyway. I have an older house and the lights and outlets in the “light-duty” areas such as bedrooms tend to be on the same circuit. I was told that AFCI breakers trip too often in that environment. And at a minimum that means trips to the breaker panel at 10 o’clock in the evening to reset the breaker. The electrician said he has had bad luck with such installations. Newer wiring where the the lights and outlets are on different circuits are better candidates.
Does that agree with your experience?
Are you using incandescent or some type of fluorescent lighting? Is a dimmer present? AFCIs have been known to nuisance trip in the presence of dimmers and various types of fluorescent lighting, although this problem is rapidly going away with the improvements in AFCI technology. They should, however, absolutely NOT nuisance trip in the presence of incandescent lighting. Other culprits are certain types of motor loads, such as found in power tools and vacuum cleaners. Again, these issues are being addressed with new AFCI designs. Since bedrooms have been mandated to include AFCI protection since the 1999 NEC, it would be wise to consider installing them.
One of the problems that I have run across is the lack of discrmination.
If you have two such devices in line, one protecting multiple ways, and then one protecting a single way, if the tripping times are not properly selected, you find that instead of the single way breaker tripping, and interrupting just one circuit, you’ll get a breaker further up the line tripping, and knocking out half the building.
GFCIs have a time to trip, you select a device based upon the position in the network. You can cause yorself a lot of hassle, and in industry lots of problems, if you have GFCIs at several points down the network and in cases like this you have to ensure the trip time furtherst upline is longest, to allow the device closest to the fault to trip out first.
If you don’t do this, it can make locating a fault difficult, and you could end up switching power on into a fault - at worst this could be a short - not something you’d want to do.
I respectfully disagree with your local associate. Although it is possible that an AFCI device is defective, the tripping could also indicate a problem which should be investigated. Backstab connections on receptacles and switches should be eliminated, wire nuts checked for proper tightness, and devices checked for pinched/nicked conductors. Make sure that appliance cords plugged into receptacles on the circuit aren’t damaged.
Thanks
I thought it was a good idea, but he was the one putting in the new service panel. I was paying by the hour and for all materials, so there was no reason for him to cut corners, so I took his advice.
check wire nuts for tightness… I live in Katrinaland (south Louisiana) and had to rebuild. If I hadn’t been in the house late one evening a few days before we moved back in, that wire nut might well have burned down the house. I had just paid $2000 to have all the wiring in several rebuilt rooms checked. Sigh. I had to get another electrician and have it checked again. I wasn’t happy.
Nowdays we homeowners talk about which contractor was good and which was bad. Instead of where to find said contractor. I had terrible luck with electricians, my AC man was great. My coworker had the opposite. Luck of the draw during a trying time.
Didn’t realize you were dealing with flood damage. I hope he replaced all submerged wiring, and devices. I’d also be intrigued to know if he used backstabs or the screw connectors. Some folks are creatures of habit, and if they’ve always dunnit that way, they see no reason to change. There’s no reason, whatsoever, that new wiring, and new devices, professionally installed, would trip an AFCI breaker.
It probably ia done in the US, but not in an obvious way.
You may well have consumers who have a GFCI breaker in the main box, but they may also use one of the portable appliance types, and this is when you can get upstream tripping.
In the UK, we have a 3 wire system, so it makes it much easier to implement an earth fault detection system.
