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We need a lot more electricians

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Re: We need a lot more electricians

#461

Post by anikom15 »

jly wrote: post #403
londons_explore wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFCI's are of dubious effectiveness at their purpose (preventing fires). They're kinda snake oil because each manufacturer won't tell you under what exact conditions they'll trip. Somehow the law in the USA now requires them on every circuit, although they aren't used at all in Europe (which has a higher voltage yet far fewer electrical deaths).

I'm not sure where you are getting this. According to the CPSC, who analyzed some 10s of thousands of fires, something like 50% of them were caused by wire arcing that could be prevented with AFCI breakers. This is the exact reason why the NFPA is moving the NEC towards eventually requiring AFCI on every circuit in the house.

Key word is could.

Do AFCIs actually do their prescribed function effectively?

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#462

Post by anikom15 »

bityard wrote: post #149
londons_explore wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They only need to be installed in specific places... But they ought to be installed for the whole house. You do want your refrigerator on one. What when your mom is putting a metal saucepan into the fridge of leftovers, knocks and smashes the lamp inside, and the AC lamp power supply kills her though the metal saucepan? What when a baby puts a fork into an electrical outlet in the living room? What when floodwater co…

Let know when GFCIs and AFCIs are robust enough against spurious tripping and I will readily install them everywhere. GFCIs are notorious for tripping on certain appliances like refrigerators and freezers, and can trip due to RFI from other devices in the house. AFCIs do not like anything with a brushed motor, especially power tools and sufficiently large vacuums. I have personally experienced all of these just in th…

GFCIs also have a lifespan. Ideally they’ll be easily replaced at the breaker panel, but most of the time they are put on outlets. Those outlets could be in a difficult to reach location. They are about twice the cost of a regular outlet/breaker. AFCIs seem to be about three to four times.

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#463

Post by anikom15 »

CorrectHorseBat wrote: post #316
anikom15 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which country? In the U.S., GFCIs only need to be installed in specific locations, which is good. I do not want my refrigerator or computer on a GFCI. In the U.K., you just can’t have plugs in bathrooms (aside from the shaver plug), which is probably more sensible.

> I do not want my refrigerator or computer on a GFCI Why not? Here in Belgium they are required everywhere and that works just fine.

America has 110 V which is more of a nuisance than a threat when it’s dry. Our GFCIs are specifically for wet applications (like bathrooms) and so are much more sensitive than European GFCIs.

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#464

Post by [deleted] »

jly wrote: post #417
quickthrowman wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You do want your refrigerator on one. What when your mom is putting a metal saucepan into the fridge of leftovers, knocks and smashes the lamp inside, and the AC lamp power supply kills her though the metal saucepan? Your fridge scenario is.. fantasy. What is the path to ground? There isn’t one.. you can hold onto a live phase conductor all day and not get shocked if the circuit isn’t completed. Refrigerator only n…

> Refrigerator only needs a GFI if it is within a certain distance of a sink. Not anymore. NEC 2023 requires GFCI for every 120 or 240V outlets in the kitchen, regardless of their location or proximity to the sink. This was a big change.

[deleted]

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#465

Post by idiotsecant »

shawabawa3 wrote: post #365
DaveExeter wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There is a good chance that if you installed GFCI in some old house it would just... trip due to shitty wiring. No, that's not true! A GFCI measures the current going in and the current going out and if they are not equal it trips.

I had a GFCI installed in my 1930s built house the other week The circuit repeatedly tripped, so the electrician uninstalled it. To install the GFCI he would need to spend 1-2 days splitting circuits to find the leak(s) so instead of ~$40 + 1 hours labour it's potentially thousands of dollars

so....you just left a significant phase to ground fault in your house wiring? That you live in? That seems like monumentally bad decision making if so.

Do you understand what this actually implies?

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#466

Post by idiotsecant »

londons_explore wrote: post #334
DaveExeter wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There is a good chance that if you installed GFCI in some old house it would just... trip due to shitty wiring. No, that's not true! A GFCI measures the current going in and the current going out and if they are not equal it trips.

Some old houses have exposed wiring in damp places, so there really is electricity leaking all the time. Theres probably some wire with paper insulation touching a plant root under the house, slowly steaming away. OP is correct that in this case a GFCI would trip all the time. But on the other hand, GFCI leaks are fairly easy to track down and fix, especially with the right equipment.

Old wiring with exposed conductors (!?!?!?) is a five-alarm fire situation (maybe even literally) and needs to be fixed, it's not a casual 'lol silly house' situation.

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#467

Post by idiotsecant »

bityard wrote: post #149
londons_explore wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They only need to be installed in specific places... But they ought to be installed for the whole house. You do want your refrigerator on one. What when your mom is putting a metal saucepan into the fridge of leftovers, knocks and smashes the lamp inside, and the AC lamp power supply kills her though the metal saucepan? What when a baby puts a fork into an electrical outlet in the living room? What when floodwater co…

Let know when GFCIs and AFCIs are robust enough against spurious tripping and I will readily install them everywhere. GFCIs are notorious for tripping on certain appliances like refrigerators and freezers, and can trip due to RFI from other devices in the house. AFCIs do not like anything with a brushed motor, especially power tools and sufficiently large vacuums. I have personally experienced all of these just in th…

If the system voltage is between 150 V and 300 V, then either double insulation or a separate safety ground with the same gauge wire as the hot conductor is required; the purpose of the safety ground is to keep the equipment case or cabinet from reaching 150 V in case of a fault.

In this case a Class C GFCI may be used to provide fibrillation protection, let-go-protection is optional.

A Class C GFCI is 20mA trip current.

This will not spuriously trip your freezer. If you're having issues with this it's because you're designing your power distribution system incorrectly.

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#468

Post by idiotsecant »

Freak_NL wrote: post #416
londons_explore wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

European GFCI's are 30mA, and don't false trip. US GFCI's are 5mA, and frequenty false trip. lots of info here[1] TL;DR: The US regulations prevent small electrical faults into things like swimming pools from causing people to drown. The european regulations will stop you getting killed by electricity directly, but won't stop you drowning if you happen to be in a pool while touching some wiring. [1]: https://diy.stac…

This thread is really baffling to this Dutchman. All houses have a house-wide residual-current device here; it is not a topic for debate at all. And indeed, these don't false trip. US electrical wiring always weirds me out. Cables run through walls without pulling them through hard plastic conduits and sockets that look like something designed seventy years ago. It's probably a matter of perspective, but it seems lik…

Those hard plastic conduit are not providing much in the way of mechanical protection. wires in studs works pretty well, really.

Whole-house GFCI is a good thing, but we should be careful to consider what you get for that. In order for GFCIs to coordinate the whole-house device is going to trip at a relatively high current. This is definitely on the edge of what will disrupt the heart of a person. American GFCIs are often at the device level on the outlet, so they are more error prone in terms of spurious trips but they are also much, much safer because they are substantially more sensitive.

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#469

Post by throwaway4aday »

treeman79 wrote: post #385
throwaway4aday wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A wood stove isn't a trivial thing to maintain or install. Sure we could require everyone to add one but that's a huge expense for a lot of people. After they have one, you need to manage your firewood which involves having enough for your needs delivered ahead of when you need it, you need to store it somewhere it will stay dry, you need to educate people on how to properly use the wood stove, etc. and that's not ev…

President is currently trying to ban gas stoves. Also I imagine save the tree groups would lose their minds on burning wood in more areas of the country. Air quality folks probably wouldn’t be happy either.

Apparently you just have to call it biomass and they're ok with it. The air quality would suck though if you had whole neighbourhoods doing it.

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#470

Post by zbrozek »

polski-g wrote: post #319
tibbon wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need a AFCI in most places now. In the 2020 edition of the NEC®, Section 210.12 requires that for dwelling units, all 120-volt, single-phase, 15- and 20-ampere branch circuits supplying outlets or devices installed in dwelling unit kitchens, family rooms, dining rooms, living rooms, parlors, libraries, dens, bedrooms, sunrooms, recreation rooms, closets, hallways, laundry areas, or similar rooms or areas shall be…

AFCI trips on the smallest thing. Turning on my blender or microwave tripped it. I ended up downgrading to just GFCI in frustration.

Brushed motors in particular are largely indistinguishable from an arc fault. Lots of home motors (in vacuum cleaners, fans, blenders, food processors, garbage disposals, blah blah blah) use them.
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