ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area AFCI - Consumer Reports/Do you use?

Hello everyone! Watts new?

I appreciate all the responses to my last posting. What a wonderful resource this is!

In the August 2001 issue of Consumer Reports there was an article titled "Your home wiring: Is it safe?" I am wondering about this paragraph..."A promising new technology you may want to consider is the arc fault circuit interrupter (AFCI), which detects arcs at low levels of current that wouldn't trip a circuit breaker. An electrician installs these devices in your circuit-breaker panel. They're not a substitute for replacing bad wiring, but they do offer added protection for older wiring."

Is this still a "new technology" and untested or has it become part of the electrical world landscape and is in common use?? Required by code? Your experiences and recommendations?

We are in the early stages of updating the electrical in a 1920's house. The Getting Bids stage. If your interested, there are photos of some of the electrical stuff under "Our Old House-1920s" posted 12/24/02 in "Photos Submitted for Discussion"

Again, thanks for the help.

Remarked

Do a search on this forum and the "NEC and other code issues" forum. You will find a very large numbr of posts on this subject.
Don

remarked,
who wrote the article?? does the writer include his/her sources??

Thanks for the tip. I did the search on AFCI and found much discussion which I have handed over to my husband to read.

The article has no author or sources. It was written by the magazine in their August 2001 issue. I got the article from their web site.

remarked