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thomaspultz

Will a gfci receptacle work ok on an afci protected circuit?

Tom Pultz
14 years ago

I'm going to be adding some AFCI breakers for the bedrooms, family room, living room and dining room.

I previously added a GFCI receptacle in the crawl space that's on the family room circuit.

Will this GFCI continue to work OK or will this essentially "double fault protected" circuit cause problems?

Thanks.

Comments (11)

  • petey_racer
    14 years ago

    It will work no problem.

  • texasredhead
    14 years ago

    An AFCI breaker and a GFCI have totally seperate purposes. Basically, an arc fault breaker prevents fires and a GFCI prevents shocks. Standard breakers will not always react to arcing in a fixture because it does not sense an overload which causes fires.

    On the other hand, GFCIs are installed in kitchens and bathrooms to prevent shocks from defective toasters, hair dryers, etc., especially in damp locations.

    I think where things are going, we may see combination AFCI/GFCI breakers that will be a requirement in new construction and service upgrades.

  • Tom Pultz
    Original Author
    14 years ago

    Thanks for the replies. I am aware of what an AFCI and GFCI do... I just did not know if they would "fight" one another on the same circuit since the AFCI has some of the same protection as a GFCI, just at a higher current level I believe.

    Technically, I don't have to install an AFCI breaker on the family room circuit (yet) since our area does not follow the 2008 NEC, but since I'm updating the panel and need to install them on the bedroom circuits I thought I might as well install AFCI breakers on all receptacle circuits not protected by GFCIs.

  • ecranny
    14 years ago

    texasredhead, you said 'GFCI prevents shocks' - not exactly true, so I want to elaborate. GFCI will detect the fact that you are recieving a shock, and will trip in a very short time so that hopefully you will get away with just a nasty 'suprise' instead of a lethal shock.

    Combination AFCI and GFCI sounds like a great idea - I would patent the device if I were you :)

  • Ron Natalie
    14 years ago

    Well: GFCI is for protection from shock (i.e., lethal shock). AFCI is fire prevention.

    Be very careful with the terminology. "Combination" with regard to AFCI means it has both the Branch/Feeder and the Outlet protection features in one unit. The proper term for a device that is both an AFCI and GFCI is "dual listed."

    Not a whole lot of those out there, but I suspect they are coming.

  • brickeyee
    14 years ago

    "GFCI will detect the fact that you are recieving a shock, and will trip in a very short time so that hopefully you will get away with just a nasty 'suprise' instead of a lethal shock."

    In the vast majority of cases they will protect a person since the current from the hot rarely manages to return completely on the neutral in an accidental shock.

    If you put yourself directly across the hot and neutral with no leakage paths for current the GFCI will merrily measure the hot and neutral as equal and not activate.

    This is more of a hazard to folks working on live circuits than the average accidental shock from defective equipment.

    While GFCIs are very effective when correctly installed and maintained (hit the test button at least every couple months) they (like most safety equipment) are not perfect.

  • Ron Natalie
    14 years ago

    Of course if you were to make an arc as you connected yourself across the line-neutral, the AFCI should trip :-)

  • brickeyee
    14 years ago

    Humans do not usually arc very much at 120 volts.

    Just jump like hell (or fall off the ladder).

  • pharkus
    14 years ago

    lol

  • Headbanger
    3 years ago

    I have a similar situation to the original question.

    Not to be contentious, I see a lot of discussion about intended operation of devices, but no real, simple answer to the question. So to stream line, I don't care about the why's and wheres, just a simple answer yes, no or alternative solution.


    Background: My home (I remodeled 15 years ago) has back to back wired outlets on bedroom walls, some facing to the exterior of the house, some facing to the interior of the bed room. We found that GFCI devices won't work on the share neutral of the AFCI circuit. I wasn't aware of that at the time, nor did the inspector catch it. (AFCI circuit breakers for bedrooms had become the requirement around that time).


    Question : Does there exist today a circuit breaker that will allow the GFCI device to be used on if I replace my existing AFCI circuit breaker - or - is the best solution to replace the cb with normal one and change all the devices individually? Will the devices argue with each other on the shared neutral?

  • Ron Natalie
    3 years ago

    Eh? As long as things are wired properly, they will work. You can't share neutrals of either AFCI or GFCI. You need to make sure that both the hot and the neutral on a protected circuit connect to nothing but the protecting device.