I have always been one for safety but been having a hard time to wrap my arms with the new AFCI requirements. When they start tripping, you will only know what circuit is tripping, not where or why. That can turn into a hellish nightmare for contractors and customers alike. The only way to find the fault is to pull it all apart and look for a loose connection, providing it the problem is in one of the boxes. The technology is suppose to reduce fires by 50% in the coming years. Although I have not known anyone to lose a home due to arcing, I would also feel bad if it could have been prevented despite my personal feeling about the the trouble that will likely come.
I was doing some research on nfpa.org today and found an interesting article. Aparently there has been a push in the avaition industry for quite some time now for AFCI technology. Older planes have had arcing issues for years. I recall years ago on a news show (back when news meant real news) about how big the problem was back then so it has been a problem for quite awhile now.
They too had the same problem with AFCI protection. It works but where is the problem? Unlike old houses, the wiring is less accessible in a plane, more expensive to fix and stand to lose more if a wire did fail in flight. Given that it costs about a million dollars to rewire a big plane, there was vested interest to find a way to use AFCI protection and have an effective mean to locate the arcing problem.
The attachment is a report about that technology used to locate the arcing. I have no connection with the company in any way. It seems to me that the developers is throwing a little sales pitch in a time or two in the report so I hope this is not a violation of this board's rule. If it is, my bad.
http://www.nfpa.org/assets/files/PDF/Proceedings/Kuhn-Furse-Smith_presentation.pdf
