We now have power upstairs. Both bedroom circuits have been wired up to the main panel and everything works as it should. The light circuit has to be moved from it’s temporary home in a sub-panel and there are still a couple of smoke detectors to connect, but that should only take a few more hours (translation: all day). Then I can turn my focus to cleaning up the debris in the basement to make it nice and safe for the plumbing guys to do the heating upgrade. I am starting to feel pretty good about this house in general. Well, except for another *minor* electrical issue left over from the previous owner.
How did this house not burn down?
I have lost count of the electrical problems in this house. I have already cleaned up most of the problems, and I consider the house to be relatively safe now. That is if you don’t count the mess I discovered yesterday.
More wiring mess.
Yup. This box is live. In a very awkward spot. I haven’t touched it at all. This is the way it has been since before we moved in. No cover. Wires hanging outside of the box.Needless to say, I have more wires to trace, and possibly another circuit to re-wire. One thing for sure is that it cannot be left like this.
Arc Fault Interrupter
The latest revision of our electrical code requires all bedroom plugs to be serviced by an Arc Fault Interrupter, which is a very expensive breaker. The hot and neutral wires both get connected to the breaker which has its own neutral wire which is attached to the panel. Nothing too difficult as far as connecting the wires, but installing the breaker is a bit of a pain.
Arc fault interupter
My apologies for the blurry picture, but at least it illustrates what I am talking about. There are two AFIs in the panel, one for each bedroom. One is at the bottom, the other at the top of the picture. You can see that they are quite a bit longer than the standard breakers, the reason being that they contain additional electronics.
Because of the added length, the AFIs block access to the ground strip. It is also a tight squeeze among the other wires in the box.
GFI breakers are also larger than standard ones, and would pose the same problem.
Some have suggested, in the interest of safety, that AFIs be used in other areas of the house, not just the bedroom. However, unless the manufacturers increase the size of their service panels, it might almost be physically impossible.
In fact, in the interest of neatness, I wish my SquareD electric panel was a couple of inches wider. I also wish that the ground strips were more conveniently located, but that is just a personal preference. Of course, it the upstairs bedrooms were only wired to minimum code, I would only have needed one AFI, which would have made things a bit easier. Down the road, though, I plan to renovate the master bedroom, which means I will need a third AFI, so I’m not done messing with these things yet.
