I see that Ohio has a real back bone and removed Arc fault interupters from there code. the manufacturers keep making products to protect us,It drives the cost of houses up and the profits for manufactures sky high. How thick of a bubble do we need to live in to protect ourselves. I hear it now how many lives will it save, or the cost of human life. Ballony. We have had to change over 300 arc fault breakers. Paddle fans and vaccume sweapers have triped them.

Reno, we could widen this thread to all the changes in the 2008 code but it wouldn't be a thread, it would be a rope. Do you disagree with all changes? If not, let's take one at a time. Also, as a matter of fact AHJs do make changes for individual cases. What is suitable for North Alaska may not be suitable for South Florida. The NEC is not a mandate. What is mandated could be discussed with your AHJ and your engineers. Also, residential electrical service is only a small part of the NEC, Why not discuss cranes, welders, load transfer in hospitals? If we did in a single thread they would come and arrest us for making criminal demands on human attention span.

What many do not take into account is using the load calculations. It for example on about 1200 square foot house it may add only two additional breakers with the many exceptions such as GFCI that are now not set to go in also with the many areas left out for kitchens and other locations. The industry that sent this in may have not thought though just as the building industry has not and are running wild with out looking at what this really means.

Good, I hope Mass. does the same thing. I'm curious what readers think of the added safety of an AFCI or is it just a money maker for manufactuers?

I agree with Ohio and the State of Idaho is also adopting 2008 without AFCI requirements. NEC goofed up did not consider cost for new homes. My local jurisdiciton is following the State of Idaho and not requiring AFCI for other than bedrooms.

Wisconsin is still in the process of adopting the 2008 Code. The state can adopt all, none, or modify any of the NEC articles. I'm sure these two items will be debated heavily in committee. Time will tell. One item that has already cleared is AFCI are NOT required on service changeouts when updating from fuses to breakers. We'll wait and see what the verdict is on Tamperproof receptacles.

I agree that the NFPA estimates for complying with the 08 code are far lower than will be the case in the real world. Add in a 'cascade effect' (additional panels, etc.), and I see the real cost as being well above the $3-$400 asserted in a recent code update class. Say, by an order of ten.

Cost, however, is not the issue. Despite patronizing appeals to emotion (how much is one life worth?) .... that is NOT the function of the NEC. As Article 90 makes clear, the NEC is a minimum, practical safety ... and not a design code. I believe that the changes in the 08 edition exceed this mandate.

More invidious has been the spread of an attitude that it is necessary for locales to explain their failure to adopt a model code. This has it completely backwards ... it is for the NFPA, and anyone else, to justify themselves to AHJ. The decision is for the AHJ, in complete conformance with the CONSTITUTIONAL political process, make.

"We won't make it / can't make it affordable without a guaranteed mass market" is pure hubris. Pick nearly any item you can see ... and it was developed, made, and marketed without any such guarantees. There is no reason for a special set of rules to be developed just for NEMA.

Great maybe NC will do same, after looking into the cost.,

Great maybe NC will do same, after looking into the cost.,

You all reckon we'll get to the place where we can wire a houses for more than one code cycle without feeding the breaker people more and more money?

AFCI ITS GREAT, IT WILL SAVE A LOT OF LIFES AND HOUSES

Let's have responsible parents who properly discipline and supervise their children instead of tamper resistant receptacles. If we let this continue, we will be making houses so safe that nobody can afford one. Bravo to those who take a stand against this!

With any luck Maine will see fit to follow Ohio...AFCI's are pretty much useless and unnecessary. Tamperproofs? show the need over rides the cost..Another deal where manufacturers lobbies create a problem and presto...they also have a solution that costs everybody money.

I cant blame them, Here in Minnesota, we are supposed to adopt the 2008 in July and now it may not happen until September!

I think that most of these code changes are only created to line the pockets of the manufactuers and the people that get a kickback on this.I know lets screw the small buisiness owners and consumers a little more, somebody needs a porche payment!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Where in this $1,000.00 does home safety come into consideration? A contracter could be sued for a whole lot more if a child or older becomes at risk. I think that as a home inspector we now have to dot every i and cross every t to avoid litigation. I was accused the other day by a seller's agent that 5 1/2 hours for an inspection was too long. I am only doing CYA.

Paying a thousand dollars one time for the cost of a house that is far better protected against electrically caused fires is the cheapest and best insurance one can buy notwithstanding other insurance savings. My guess is that Ohio has the best government money can buy- and is bought. What a bunch of... Oh, oh. I can't say that here. Let's do the physics. an electrical arc is over 2000 degrees F. Wood burns at a much lower temperature. An electrical arc will often not kick a standard breaker. It will often continue to arc until it starts a fire.Then homes, furniture and babies in cribs burn. Way to go Ohio.

There are hard stats the give strong evidence that electrical arcing causes fires. if you don't know of a case where this has happened you haven't been around very long or you are leading a protected life. AFCI s do work! Their extra cost is trivial! They add only one percent to the cost of a home. Are you telling me your kids are not worth that? If you don't believe stats the insurance people do. the States that ignore the 2008 NEC will pay more in homeowners insurance. When I had my contracting company, We had to rewire homes that suffered fire damage due to electrical arcing. I said rewire-not repair. This type of damage is a mess. Roping is hard enough but reroping is far worse.

Quite frankly, I hope New Jersey does that too. I think that tamper proof receptacles for all houses is a little bit extreme. I think that the NEC is being run by the manufactures of electrical equipment and I think it is getting out of hand. We all want safety, but at what costs. Here in NJ, there are a lot of senior citizens and I feel that Tamper receptacles will just make their life more difficult. This is just my opinion.

I think that this is a classic case of idealism vs. practicallity. I (and the government) can think of thousands of ways we can be assured of safety (how about no more driving?). We all need to get off this kick of trying to assure that we will never have problems. But, what is left? NO LIFE OR FREEDOM AT ALL. The NEC (and our government) need to get back to basics. We don't need a lifelong babysitter.

I wonder how many of the guys, that think the added cost is trivial, have changed out all the 15 and 20A breakers in their own house. Maybe they all have. But somehow i would find that hard to believe.

I'd like to know where they came up with the "$1000.00" figure. As yet I can't get a supplier to give me a straight answer on the price of a tamper proof recep ( other than the $12 I've paid in the past). And don't even get me started on the AFCI's!!

What this change REALLY mandates is a lower quality of wiring for houses, because I (we) will be competing against contractors who will STRETCH their circuits to the max ( and a bit beyond) and skimp on recep spacing.

A few extra circuits "just in case" and a half a dozen or so more receps "just to be nice" suddenly add $200 -300 to the bid (or final price), enough to swing the building contractor to hire the El Cheapo guy.

And, sorry, you can't convince me that it's a "safety thing" when AFCI's aren't required EVERYWHERE.

Why the exception for areas already covered by the GFI rules? Don't fires start there too? And the tamper proof receps require a PERFECT male cord end to work. How many service calls/call backs will that cause as people adjust to their lamps, radios etc... not working anymore??

Replly to Fred Electrical inspector some are good some are bad , you find a bad inspsector and he is negligents in his work performance he can be sue. Today we are going to civil court to sue a electrical inspector because he requires the gas pipe be connected to the water pipe he is negligent lack of knowledge in his work perforance in the pass 40 years I have know 10 electrical inspector that got fire for work performance that was unacceptable . IF proven negligent they can be sue.

Unfortunately this seems to be a case of "throwing out the baby with the bath water". They could very easily adopt the 2008 NEC, but not adopt the AFCI or TP requirements, but instead they have chosen to revert to the 2005 version in total. There are many good changes in the 2008 that will now not be adopted all because of an issue with a small part of the new code.

38% of all home fired are caused by unattended cooking. I suggest that the next code reguire 'dead man' switches on all range receptacles. Hey, it could save one life. And the cost would be trivial.

If someone can clarify this for me, I would greatly appreciate it. Has Ohio reverted back to 2005 NEC for residential construction only? Or has it reverted back for all types (commercial, industrial, etc)?

Thanks!

While in Newark, New Jersey last week, I was informed by the electrical inspectors that Newark has exempted 210.12 from adoption since the inception of the AFCI requirements several code cycles ago.

I will be returning to New Jersey next week and will find out if the N.J. D.C.A. has exempted this requirement statewide or if it is just a local issue in Newark.

I have a couple of questions about this subject. What is the difference between an AFCI and a GFCI? Is an AFCI, a GFCI with the addition of arc flash protection? To me, this does not look like a code change for 2008 but it was changed in 2005. Why is this coming out now. Thank you in advance for any information that is supplied to my questions.

Just what are AFCI's???...and tamper proof receptacles. I have searched thru the 2008 NEC and except for the brief mentiom at 406.11 I can not find nothing. Can I get some help here?

There are some other things concern me about tamper resistant receptacles and AFCIs:

1. My experience is that a number of solid state components do not last that much longer than industrial grade vacuum tubes or at best about as long as the vacuum tubes that went into undersea telephone cables.

Solid state components do undergo types of wear and tear. Even at room temperature, the itty bitty metal wires in integrated circuits have enough metal atoms undergo diffusion through solid materials that some chips particularly digital to analog converters die at about 10 to 12 years of age even if never used.

2. A sprinkler system protects against a much broader range of fire hazards than AFCIs. For that matter, so would a real fire and burglar alarm system. I would rather put money into a fire alarm system or a sprinkler system.

3. The residential tamper resistant receptacles can be defeated using 2 small screwdrivers. Essentially, they are a LIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I would like to test some 5 yedar olds and 10 year olds and give them 2 screwdrivers each and see how long it takes them to figure this out.

4. Pass & Seymour is so far the only manufacturer that has come up with a cheap tamper resistant receptacle. The illogic is that if P&S can do it, so can somebody else.

So if the price of drywall goes up are we only going to drywall part of the new homes now?

What is a $1,000 compared to a new home price of $200k-$500k?

Very bad decision, in my opinion, for the areas to accept this type of action. So can someone safety shop the code cycle that fits their budget? I guess I will soon be seeing rolls of 12-2 aluminum since the price of copper is so high.

This is about the only place us old, cantankerous, resistant to change, dinosaurs can vent. So, thanks Mike for providing it for us. Still can’t get over those youngsters talking about a couple thousand dollars being trivial. Ole well, times they are a changing.

What is $1000 dollars if using the AFCI and tamper resistance receptacles saves someones life. Think about your children or grandchildren when trying to save a few dollars.

I think this is the first of many that will not adopt this 2008 code.

This could be the tip of the iceberg - if the top eschelon and penny-pinchers can control electrical safety for the general public then all that was fought for and established in the name of safety could be for naught.

BIG OAKS FROM LITTLE ACORNS GROW!

I want to due article for my local IAEI chapter on this matter so any help would be greatly appreachted.