The rule is worded "branch circuits that supply receptacles installed in sleeping facilities of a dwelling unit shall be protected by an arc-fault circuit interrupter."
"Sleeping facilities" appear to not include living-rooms, where people sleep on the sofa; dog houses, where bad spouses sleep; nor even attics with an only access being through a sleeping facility. The term doesn't include bathrooms. A bathroom isn't a sleeping facility. Nor does it include a water closet, nor any other type of closet.
When the drafters of the Canadian Electrical Code want to include adjacent rooms in the definition of "sleeping facilities", then can easily do so. Just as they have excluded adjacent rooms by simply not including them.
The code is adopted as law, and as such, we are entitled to apply it as written, using the ordinary meaning of the words - without asking each inspector how he applies each rule in his area. That's just the way laws are.
Appendix C9 deals specifically with the right to interpret the code. It doesn't matter how many inspectors line up, the Canadian Electrical Code excludes them from the right to interpret the code. For those who don't agree with the law, as written, Appendix C6 is a perfect solution.
Unless someone can point to a rule that includes an adjacent room as part of a "sleeping facility", the ordinary meaning of the words will exclude a closet; and, the sump pump in the closet in the basement bedroom need not be on an arc-fault circuit.
TWH I am interpreting building code in whether a closet is part of the bedroom or another room. The building inspectors don't agree where a closet becomes a room. The building code says it is a dependant room and what does that mean? In any case where an interpretation of a code can require a lesser or greater requirement we usually side on the safer requirement.
So we interpret a closet to be a dependant room which is part of the bedroom and an outlet in a bedroom is required to be AFCI protected. No appeal of the CEC is possible but now you have me thinking about the building code and how it views a closet, walk in or hide in the corner when her husband comes home sized.
