It's about time to upgrade/replace my 24 year old, back-stabbed, builder grade outlets. I've replaced a dozen or so outlets over the years and am reasonably certain I can do my entire house competently.

My first question is regarding AFCI/GFCI combo receptacles. Is there any reason why I would not want to put one on the first outlet of each room/circuit? The cost delta is nominal when considering the size of the project itself (5-10 AFCI/GFCI outlets out of 50-60).

My second question is whether there is any benefit or detriment to having more than one GFCI receptacle on a circuit. Every receptacle on my kitchen counter (3) is a GFCI and I'm wondering why...

When we bought a home in Louisville, KY in 2015 code required AFCI breakers in new construction. We moved to Russellville, TN in 2022 and had a new panel installed. I asked the inspector who came out if TN code required AFCI on new construction. He said no, and his opinion was they weren't quite perfected yet. He said random things would throw them like vacuum cleaners, etc.. We had no issues with them. I never researched them but maybe something you might want to look into.

^^ That's not a bad idea at all. Would get the benefit of fresh breakers and less having to chase down tripped receptacles (which may or may not be in the same room).

This sounds like what the inspector was telling me.

"Nuisance Tripping
AFCI breakers tripping for no obvious reason is known as nuisance tripping. Because AFCI’s are designed to detect an arc fault, they can be very sensitive and easily tripped for a few common reasons including:

Incompatible Devices
Many electronic devices, by nature of their own design, can cause AFCI breakers to detect a dangerous electrical arc that isn’t actually there. This most commonly occurs with electronic products that have motors with brushes such as vacuums, treadmills or even power tools. These brushes can cause sparking, which is normal within the device, but abnormal in the eyes of the breaker. Televisions and fluorescent lights can also cause tripping. If you have a device that regularly trips your breaker, first try using it on a different circuit. If the other breaker trips, you know the device is incompatible. If it doesn’t, call an electrician to inspect the tripped breaker."

I just added a sub-panel to my house, and installed dual function breakers on every 120v circuit. The biggest downside is cost. I was able to save quite a bit by purchasing the breakers on eBay in lots of ten. They were in the $35/ea new on eBay, vs $58 at the blue/orange store.

While nuisance tripping may be a concern, it seems to be overblown. New AFCI breakers are quite smart. I do have a Brother MFC-8810 printer that trips the breaker. It is a known issue with some Brother printers. They issued a firmware update to fix the problem, but it didn’t help in my case. Other than the printer, I have yet to have a single nuisance trip. My experience is that people often attribute nuisance tripping to an actual fault in equipment.

I went with breakers instead of AFCI/GFCI receptacles because I wanted everything in one place. I didn’t want to have to seek out each receptacle for testing. It’s all right there in one panel. I did NOT put a AFCI/GFCI sticker on each receptacle like the NEC requires. That’s a ridiculous requirement, and looks like crap after a few years when the stickers age. Quite unnecessary since the whole house is protected anyway.

AFCI receptacles belong in damp places like bathrooms, garages. etc. You couldn't make me install them throughout my house.

Here's a pic where I was adding the sub. You can see in the original panel that there are currently five AFI breakers. These were required at the time for the bedrooms. Now Utah doesn't require any AFIC breakers anywhere, but I wanted to add the sub so I could add them anyway, and eliminate all those tandem breakers.



The new sub panel. It turns out that those original AFI breakers (blue test button) were recalled by Square D, so they sent me these green button ones. They are parallel fault only, and no GFCI, so I installed them on the lighting circuits. The other purple button breakers are combination AFIC (serial and parallel arc) plus GFCI. The yellow button one is for my office with the aforementioned Brother laser printer. When I replace that printer, I'll switch out the breaker for a dual function one. GFCI only for now.



My original panel after removing all the 15a circuits and eliminating the tandems. There are four AFIC only breakers. Those are the kitchen and bathroom counters. I wanted to leave the GFCI protection local for those circuits. People are used to seeing the GFCI on receptacles in those locations, so I decided to leave them be.



One of the reasons I went with AFIC/GFCI breakers is because I pigtailed all of my receptacles, with the exception of the few GFCI receptacles still in place. I crimped all of my grounding wires with a Buchannan C-24 tool, and used pigtails on the conductors with pre-twisted connections under wirenuts. My whole house had backstabbed el crapo receptacles, so I replaced them all with spec grade TR receptacles. I went with the Eaton (which I think are formerly Cooper) because they seem to have a more user-friendly TR shutter than the Leviton receptacles.

I used to not be this paranoid. But then I had a tenant burn down a house, and I have a 2yo grand kid running around, and now I'm all uptight about electrical safety. I may even start swapping in some 240v GFCI breakers if I find some good deals on fleabay.

One of the biggest advantages of this setup over using receptacles is that I can test them all in one place. I don't have to run all over the house to test my devices. Just go right down the panel pushing buttons and resetting breakers for testing purposes. On some of my circuits, the first outlet is behind furniture. Those would never get tested, and would be a pain to find and reset if tripped. Probably a code violation if they are hidden behind stuff and not readily accessible. Also, my circuits are protected from the panel onward, not just from the first receptacle.

quote:

Originally posted by Bassamatic:
AFCI receptacles belong in damp places like bathrooms, garages. etc. You couldn't make me install them throughout my house.

GFCI for damp places where electrocution risk to occupant is primary concern.

AFCI for places where an arc might cause a fire to spread (eg bedroom).

Dis you have bad a experience with AFCI?

quote:

Originally posted by Aeteocles:

GFCI for damp places where electrocution risk to occupant is primary concern.

AFCI for places where an arc might cause a fire to spread (eg bedroom).

Dis you have bad a experience with AFCI?

Hey, thanks for pointing that out. No, I have not had any problems with AFCI. My post was in error...my eyes saw AFCI but for some reason my brain was thinking GFCI. Sorry.

From https://www.afcisafety.org/afci-nec-considerations/

quote:

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 protected by AFCIs.

Since 2020, the NEC seems to require AFCI everywhere except bathrooms, garages, or outdoors. I believe they started with bedrooms because of electric blankets and space heaters and then expanded from there.