You want to keep your house from catching on fire.
One of the best ways to do that is to have an Arc Fault Circuit Interrupter.
Today we’re going to show you how to a Leviton AFCI.
Bill White from Livewire Service Group is going to share with you all the tips and tricks
on how to do this.
And in the end we have a pretty cool explosion experiment to show you why AFCIs are a great
option, right?
Yeah, we’re going to show you the difference between what happens to a wire that’s on
a standard breaker and a standard outlet and what can happen to a wire whenever you have
it plugged into one of these.
This definitely saves lives.
So you definitely want to watch that at the end, but don’t try it at home.
Let’s jump into the video tutorial.
Hi, guys.
I want to talk to you a little bit about the AFCI outlet and why would you install one,
what they’re used for, and what kind of problems does it protect you from.
I should also mention that this is a replacement device.
All modern homes have a requirement for combination Arc Fault Circuits throughout all the bedrooms
and the rest of the house.
They use a breaker for that.
This is in a house that’s already wired prior to the 2009 Electric Code.
You’re going to need this in order to create AFCI protection in your bedroom.
It’s either that or change a breaker.
If you change a breaker, you’re going to have to hire an electrician to do that.
This is something that you can do on your own at home.
Very easy to install.
It gives you the same amount of protection that a breaker would.
So it is very good for your bedrooms and living rooms.
Okay, guys.
Well first off what we’re going to show is that this AFCI outlet is pretty much a
replacement device.
This isn’t something that’s going to go into a new construction home.
So you should already have an outlet installed and the position that you actually want to
install this outlet.
Now these things are required in most of the areas of your house.
In fact, it’s easier to name the areas that it’s not required, and that would be your
bathroom or your kitchen outlets.
Kitchen lights are still required to be arc fault protected, but this is an AFCI outlet
device.
This is only going to arc fault protect the outlet circuit.
So what we’re going to do is go to an existing outlet that we already have, and we’re going
to determine which breaker that’s on so that we can shut it off safely.
And then we’re going to pull this outlet out, and we’re going to try to determine
which wire goes back to the panel and which wire goes to the following outlets.
Because this outlet here, you will hook up your line side to it, and then it will load
protect, basically protecting every outlet past that outlet with the AFCI protection,
which stands for Arc Fault Circuit Interrupter.
And I’ll explain more in depth what that means in a minute.
We have a lamp plugged into our outlet here.
And the easiest way for you to determine which breaker it’s on is we’ll turn our lamp
on and we’ll go over to the breaker box—I’ll be right back.
I just went back to breaker panel and with this light bulb being plugged into the outlet,
by flipping the breaker and seeing the light turn off, we know now that this circuit is
shut off.
That’s a very simple way of determining whether or not the outlet is on just plugging
in a simple lamp.
Another way is if you get any basic voltage tester.
This is a basic voltage tester.
You just basically put both ends into the outlet.
And since it’s not illuminated, we also know it’s dead.
Just another way of testing it.
So this lamp is off.
We know the outlet’s dead.
We’re going to remove the outlet so we can get into the circuits inside.
Now we’re still not done with this lamp yet.
We’re going to use that for one more step.
Now we can see in this outlet box that we have two sets of wires.
Two blacks and two whites.
One of these sets of wires goes back to the electric panel.
The other set will go to the following outlets in the line.
So what we’re going to do is we are going to figure out which ones go together.
So one black and white goes together; the other black and white go together for two
separate wires.
We’re going to remove one set off of the outlet.
The reason we’re going to remove one set is so that we can determine… and what we’re
going to do is we’re going to remove this one set, and then we’re going to plug the
lamp back in and turn the breaker back on.
If the lamp turns on, that means that the line wire is still connected to the outlet.
If the lamp doesn’t turn back on, then we know that the line is the wire we had just
removed.
So just for safety purposes, what you’re going to want to do is, on this other wire
that you have loose, we’re going to put some wire nuts on there just so that we don’t
have any unattended arcs, especially since we don’t have arc fault protection on them
at this point.
Put the wire nuts on.
And we’re also going to reinstall the outlet just to make sure that we are being as safe
as possible and no one gets any unintended shocks today.
Outlet is reinstalled.
Plug the lamp back in.
Okay.
Well.
I turned the breaker back on.
The lamp turned back on.
That means that our line or our power wire is still connected to the outlet.
So we know that that is our line wire.
Now the reason we’re determining that is because this arc fault outlet installs very
similar to a GFCI outlet.
And if you’re familiar with installing a GCFI outlet, when you pull it out of the box,
it will have a sticker every two other terminals.
It says, “Attention: The low terminals are under this label.”
So that means that these—and you can see kind of written on here—line, the other
terminals are the load.
“Line” standing for eh wire going back to your panel, “load” standing for the
wires that go to the other outlets in this circuit.
All right.
When I shut off the breaker, lamp is off again.
So now we know that the wire connected to our outlet is going to be our line wire.
So we’re going to remove the outlet.
We are going to put a piece of tape on this line wire just in case you don’t want to
confuse this at this point.
This is a little trick I always do.
I put a little piece of tape on the black wire.
Just fold it over like that so that we have the line wire flagged now.
All right.
So we’re just going to remove the old standard outlet.
And like I always say, use a flathead when working on your devices.
This just ensures that we can get everything nice and tight.
All right.
So we got our line wire and move from there.
With these AFCIs, and just like Leviton’s GFCI and AFCI, it has a clamp-style connection
point for the wires.
So instead of having a loop in your wire for your screw, we’re going to straighten these
out so we can put them in the clamps properly.
All right.
Now so this is our line wire.
And our other wire that we had tucked back in there earlier is going to the next outlet.
So this is going to give us arc fault protection on all the outlets in the series.
So I always start off with the ground.
A lot of times it’s safest just to get everything grounded first.
For some reason this box has another line—because you never know how a house is wired—it’ll
shut the breaker off if anything goes wrong.
So we’re going to hook up our line side.
Now as usual—and don’t forget this—when wiring an outlet like this, you’ll have
a silver screw and a gold screw.
Silver screw always gets the white wire.
Gold screw always gets the black wire.
Hold this in position.
Oops, almost grabbed the Philips head.
You don’t want to use that.
Got to use a flathead.
That gets our lining hooked up.
We got our line hooked up.
We just simply remove the sticker for the load side.
These screws always come packaged in a box tight to the device.
They do this because a lot of times you install an arc fault outlet, you may not have another
circuit in there that goes to any other wires.
So they’ll keep those screws tight to keep anything from moving around.
So we hook up our load wire to the load side.
One thing I wanted to mention when installing one of the AFCI devices, it can only be in
a box that has two sets of wires or less.
You don’t want to have more than two sets of wires because the volume capacity of a
device like this is 2.5 in3.
You only have so much capacity in the box, and you wouldn’t want to go over volume.
So make sure that when you’re installing one of these that the outlet box only has
two sets of wires or less.
Just a little footnote.
White hooked up.
Okay.
Now like I do every time when I install a device I always tighten it up and give it
a twist.
Try to feel if any of these are loose.
All of them feel very stiff, and the wires there are twisting with the device.
So I know that all these are tightened.
Now that’s hooked up, we’re just going to tuck all these wires back in.
Hey, guys.
I turned the power back on to the outlet.
Now I’m going to show you the test and reset feature on this outlet.
Very similar to a GFCI outlet.
The power is back onto this outlet.
You can see that nothing has happened here so far.
Whenever they send you this outlet, it comes in the off position.
So you’ll need to just take your screwdriver—you can even use your finger—and hit the reset
button, and then you’ll notice that a little green light turns on here.
Whenever the green light is on, it means the outlet is on and operational and ready for
use.
Now to test it, simply push the test button.
Trips the outlet.
Hit the reset button to turn it back on.
All right, guys.
Well you’re probably wondering why am I wearing sun glasses?
Why am I wearing these gloves?
And why am I holding a cut-off extension cord?
Well I told you that I was going to show you the difference between AFCI protection and
non-AFCI protection on a circuit.
And I plan on just showing you a little demonstration on it right now.
So we did is we took out our AFCI outlet.
And we have a standard outlet plugged in here.
Because first off, what I’m going to do is plug this cord in, and I’m going to cut
through it with a razor blade.
This will kind of mimic what happens if you were to roll a piece of furniture over an
extension cord that is like older or frayed.
It’s going to cause quite an explosion.
So get ready for this; you’re going to love it.
Oh, and don’t try this at home.
I shouldn’t even be doing this here.
We’re going to just show you the difference between the AFCI and non-AFCI.
So this is non-AFCI.
What’s going to happen is I’m going to cut through this, and it’s going to explode.
Cut through it again, it’s going to explode again.
I’m going to cut through it again, it’s going to explode again.
Why?
Because the breaker is not shutting off.
Breakers don’t shut off from a short circuit like this because all a breaker does is measure
up to its full max ampsity, which will be—on this breaker—is a 20-amp breaker.
So when I cut through this wire it won’t exceed 20 amps, so it won’t shut the breaker
off.
But a combination arc fault outlet, what it does is it measures whether or not the voltage
is coming back through the neutral.
So if the sparks fly off, it means they don’t continue in the circuit.
It know something is wrong, and it shuts off immediately.
Why this is important, for this reason.
Ready?
Keeps going, huh?
What 4 or 5 cuts through the wire did it finally shut the breaker off.
And I think it was only because I was pushing hard enough to get the blade all the way into
the wire.
Look at that.
We’re going to through the AFCI outlet back in, and I’m going to show you what happens
whenever we cut through that.
Okay, guys.
Well I reinstalled the AFCI outlet, put a new razor blade in my knife, so that we can
cut through this extension cord again to show you another explosion.
But this time what it’s going to do is whenever I cut through it and you get one spark out
of it, it’s going to shut off the AFCI so you don’t have that continuous sparking
like if you were, you know, I hate to keep bringing up the same example of an extension
cord underneath a piece of furniture, but that is one of the most common ways for you
to end up having an arc in one of your bedrooms or living room.
But if you were to do that and if you were to drag the furniture over the extension cord
to start sparking, without the AFCI protection, it will continue sparking.
Now you can imagine if you were to drag a piece of furniture over, and the wire starts
to explode, and you’re freaking out, you don’t know what to do, and it just keeps
exploding on you, that’s a very dangerous situation.
It can easily set something on fire once it gets enough sparks on it.
Well with this AFCI outlet, we’re going to show you how it’s just going to be one
spark, and then it’s done.
It shuts off.
Safe.
So this is why the NEC adopted this for the new current Electric Code throughout all residential
homes.
Because they know the importance of AFCI protection.
Are you ready for another explosion?
Here we go.
I know I am.
Ready?
And look at that.
It cut through once.
And it’s dead.
Dead as a door nail.
Much safer for your home.
All right.
Pretty cool stuff.
So now you know how to install an AFCI and why you want one instead of a standard outlet.
Many thanks to Leviton for sponsoring today’s video, for paying Bill for his time; after
all, he is a licensed electrician.
And when he is not shooting videos, he’s actually doing a lot of electrical work around
Pittsburgh.
So thank you, Leviton.
Now here is the cool thing.
We’re going to be giving away three AFCIs back on over at Home Repair Tutor.
So head on over to HomeRepairTutor.com, enter into the random giveaway, you could win an
AFCI.
If you’re watching this in the future, I’m sorry you missed out on the giveaway.
It’s a good reason to subscribe to our channel or sign up for our email newsletter.
That way you won’t miss out on any of the cool giveaways that we do.
I also want to thank Duluth Trading for sponsoring Home Repair Tutor.
They always send us cool clothing like today’s free-swinging flannel, which has armpit gussets
in it.
It allows me to swing a hammer or use a circular saw and do it, not only while looking cool,
but also I guess staying warm, which is kind of ironic because they’re at the opposite
ends of the spectrum in terms of warmth but… you get my point!
So if you’re interested in some of their clothes, and you need new clothing while you’re
doing some DIY work, head on over to DuluthTrading.com.
They got great stuff.
I don’t think you’d be disappointed.
All right.
Thanks for watching the video today.
Again head on over to Home Repair Tutor for the giveaway.
I think you’d really like it.
Take care, and I’ll see you next week in our video.