AFCI breaker installation in San Antonio

An arc is current jumping a gap it should not cross, such as a nail driven through a cable or a connection that has worked loose in a box. Arcing makes intense heat at a small point, often without drawing enough current to trip a standard breaker. An arc fault circuit interrupter watches the circuit for the electrical signature of an arc and shuts it off.

Code has asked for AFCI protection in more rooms with each edition. It began with bedrooms and now reaches most of the living spaces in a home, with the exact list depending on the edition the city has adopted. An older home may have it only on the bedroom circuits, or nowhere.

That gap is why AFCI comes up after a home inspection. Inspectors note missing arc fault protection against current standards, and buyers often ask for it. A remodel brings it up too: when a circuit in one of the covered rooms is extended or modified, code generally asks for arc fault protection on that circuit.

Most of the work happens at the panel. The standard breaker on each circuit is replaced with a combination AFCI breaker, or a dual function breaker where a circuit also needs GFCI protection. The breaker has to be one listed for your panel, and some older panels have no AFCI breaker made for them; when that is the case we tell you and lay out the options.

A new AFCI can also expose problems that were already in the wall. A circuit with a damaged wire, a shared neutral or a loose connection may trip it right away. That trip is the device finding a fault, and we trace it before calling the job done.