Bedrooms-but-not-rest-of-house make sense if you look at this as a life-justified cost as oposed to economics. The original code in 2002 required AFCI in bedrooms, because the risk to life is a LOT higher if a fire starts in a room where someone is sleeping.
If a homeowner drives a nail through a wire in the wall, or if the insulation is torn by a staple during insulation, it may not immediately short, but may short sometime down the road. The risk of this is exceedingly small, and the cost is high- it's not cost justified- it's cheaper to replace the houses that burn down than to install all these AFCIs.
Who can put a price on a life, though? If this technology prevents 1 fatal fire over the next 50 years, does that justify the millions of dollars spend and numerous nuisance trips of AFCIs? The 2002 code was restricted, and still didn't eliminate the risk as it only applied to outlets, and not all the other cables passing through the walls, or cables on the stairs or other exit routes, etc.
I doubt AFCI will save the # of lives GFCI does, but it will undoubtedly save some.
Last edited by SteveFehr; 12/07/07 01:09 PM.
