[TowerTalk] Arcfault Breakers

[Joseph B. Fitzgerald]

>Would everyone who has seen a fire caused by an arc fault please raise your hand(s). 

Hand raised, I have seen several and I am not even paying that much attention.   

I had an arc fault problem in my own house that resulted in a scorched wall outlet and adjacent wall, fortunately no fire resulted.    Things could have been different had there been any lint build up from the clothes dryer attached to the outlet in question.     FWIW, the arcing was likely caused due to a nick in the conductor where the electrician stripped the insulation to attach it to the outlet.  Decades of thermal cycling at that high resistance point caused the copper to crack through and then start arcing.

de KM1P Joe