[Read!] Damn Near Burned The House Down - Space Heaters

[Navy Chief]

Unless Arc Fault breakers have improved in the last few years you can count on a lot of nuisance trips with them. A friend has a house that you can only operate a clothes iron in certain rooms ( non AFCI breakers), any room with an arc fault breaker will trip the moment any clothes iron is plugged in. It is not the iron, he has replaced it three times and every one will trip the breaker consistently.

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[Eddyde]

Unless Arc Fault breakers have improved in the last few years you can count on a lot of nuisance trips with them. A friend has a house that you can only operate a clothes iron in certain rooms ( non AFCI breakers), any room with an arc fault breaker will trip the moment any clothes iron is plugged in. It is not the iron, he has replaced it three times and every one will trip the breaker consistently.

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Interesting, I wonder if AF breaker might be picking up an arc from the iron's thermostatic contacts?
We have been powering a wide variety of tools & equipment on the above mentioned project, and have yet to trip a AF breaker. So maybe the technology has improved.

 

[twooldvolvos]

Jim,

I'm glad you are OK. I have 3 places in my house where I use space heaters on occasion. A few years ago, I ran dedicated 20 amp circuits to all of them. I usually would not have bothered but my house is 100 years old and 2 of the places were in my kid's rooms. Thanks for sharing.

Dan

 

[Splat]

yes, but try getting a quality 15amp outlet... most are low residential type. The quality type seem to be hard to find these days.

To me the quality ones are the ones with the metal strap going around the back.
They have the 2 brass leaves that allow you to just insert the wire, and tighten down the screw to secure (not the insert and it's done)..
They have the square drive on all screws. I just picked up a leviton that only the ground had the square drive, the others were phillips/slot... I was shocked, as I only brought a square drive up... damn why one and not all ???

I've had enough (real) electrician friends, young and old, of mine advise against installing wires via the push terminals on outlets or switches. I use the side screws and old type wire nuts and never had an issue, thank God. PS, get an ECX type driver for electrical screws and you'll love it. Or a good Robertson bit but I prefer the ecx drivers.

 

[GeneT45]

Unless Arc Fault breakers have improved in the last few years you can count on a lot of nuisance trips with them. A friend has a house that you can only operate a clothes iron in certain rooms ( non AFCI breakers), any room with an arc fault breaker will trip the moment any clothes iron is plugged in. It is not the iron, he has replaced it three times and every one will trip the breaker consistently.

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AFCI's (Arc Fault Circuit Interrupters) are a ghetto! First of all, what they do is "proprietary" - meaning different for each brand and type - and utterly undiagnosable by even experienced electricians. Much like GFCIs when they were new, they are a hazard in and of themselves as they cause 'nuisance trips' ALL THE TIME. In my opinion a breaker trip is something to be taken seriously and well diagnosed before resetting the breaker. AFCI's defy that by tripping meaninglessly for every odd thing. My wife has some LED bulbs that (near as we can tell) trip the AFCI. I have done insulation resistance tests, continuity tests, and monitored the drawn current, but, not knowing what the AFCI is looking at, there's no way to determine what "fault" trips it. I hate the darn things, but I imagine (like GFCIs and low-flow toilets) they'll get better in a decade or two...

GsT

 

[Cadillac]

Good thing you were close to advert the situation! I had a similar problem at work acouple months ago.
We have a fleet of electric carts for the golf course. We parked them in the basement of the clubhouse. The chargers are mounted to the ceiling with a charge receptacle whip that connects to the cart. All professionallly wired has its own sub panel/breakers theirs 74 carts.
One day I get a call from the PRO saying he smells fire. Take the short walk up there and can smell and see smoke coming from the basement. Go down there and find one of the outlets is on fire that the charger plugs into.
If you look closely you can see day light through the one receptacle. Theirs nothing to the backside it was all melted away. Turns out they had a block in a drain line which was leaking water between the slabs of concrete. The outlet box was fastened at a seam so water filled the outlet box and arced like crazy. Weird thing was the breaker never tripped. Wiring going to panel was fine. So I replaced that breaker the outlet and the cord going to charger. Was a crazy situation the clubhouse easily would have burned down. Millions of dollars.

 

[Bone Head]

What if you have a fire in your shop and the insurance investigator finds a 20 amp receptacle on a 15 amp circuit? How's that going to effect your claim?

Had a licensed electrician replace our house breaker box. He had a county inspector come out and approve his work. We got copies of the inspection, what the guy used. After he was paid he told us to submit copies to our insurance company and the bank holding the mortgage. He said (and the insurer confirmed) if there is ever an electrical fire and they did not have proof of the work and acceptance the claim would be denied and I'd have no recourse. Now, this is in Ohio; no idea about the situation elsewhere.

 

[woodchucker]

I've had enough (real) electrician friends, young and old, of mine advise against installing wires via the push terminals on outlets or switches. I use the side screws and old type wire nuts and never had an issue, thank God. PS, get an ECX type driver for electrical screws and you'll love it. Or a good Robertson bit but I prefer the ecx drivers.

I didn't say push type. I said clamp type.. there's a big difference

 

[strantor]

BTW, does anyone trust the Wago connectors... I used them on my bathroom wafer lights, it came with them. I figured low draw... but I have my doubts about using them for more since they are just like the regular insert to connect. My son is using them for a bunch of things, and I told him they are not good for heavy loads in my opinion....

I have been using Wago 221 series connectors exclusively for the past 7 years on circuits <=480V and <=20A. Thousands upon thousands of them. I have had one fail. In that same time I have repaired dozens of wire nuts that allowed wires to pull loose and arc against metal. The actual connection (wire on wire) that a wire nut offers is electrically better; virtually no heat is generated. But a lot of people don't use wire nuts properly and the connections are loose, wires pop out. I use wire nuts properly (when I use them) so I don't have that problem, but it takes some much time to do it properly that I don't bother unless I have to. Just throw a Wago at it and be done with it. And if I ever need to remove a wire for testing, it's nice not to have to undo a wire nut that might have half a dozen wires in it.

I've been considering getting a thermal imaging camera (e.g., Flir One, Seek) so I can do spot checks for overheating circuits and other things. Has anyone used one of these cameras for this?

Yes I have a Flir E4 (upgraded to E8) that is very handy for this. Also for detecting moisture issues and termites. There is a thermal imaging inspection service you can pay for in most areas, where someone will come evaluate a property with a thermal camera.

 

[metric_taper]

I've had just the opposite experience with AFCI breakers. I use GE panels, as I have lots of spare breakers. And the local home supply store (Menards) used to carry them (they dropped GE sales of panels).
When I was wiring my home addition, and applied for the permit, I was informed (2015) that I would need them pretty much in every room. So I searched out the breakers from eBay, which were used pulls from what I assume were nuisance trips. I was getting them for $15 each back then. I've not had a single nuisance trip in any of the breakers. I have two panels with 10 AFCI breakers in each. I run vacuum cleaners with universal motors, known to be a big problem with the brushes arching. My wife has a sewing room, and the iron and variable speed sewing machines have never tripped the breakers.

They are about $45 a piece now. The dual AFCI and GFCI were additional cost, but now I would spring for them. But I just checked eBay and for qty 10, they are $46 each ($458 which appears to be retail cost). Seeing the latest code, they are required everywhere in the main residence (reading the code makes my head swim).
I don't know if other brands of panels have better prices.

But I could imaging a 200 amp panel, and the electrical contractor selling them for $120 each. I wonder what a real wholesale price would be in quantities of 20.

There was a post a few months ago, where an outlet behind a lathe caught fire. Arc events are common, the statistic I read last month was 80% of home fires had this as root cause. And extension cords here in the USA do not have a fuse requirement to protect the 16AWG cord size from overload when plugged into a 15/20 amp outlet.