where should we be using dual function Breakers
[Music]
all right so dual function Breakers what is a dual function breaker it is not a combination
afci breaker cafci or combination afci devices are specifically arc fault breakers that detect
two different kinds of faults there's series faults and there are parallel
faults Arc faults specifically if you want to watch more click the little bubble I did
a whole video on Arc faults but specifically dual function are a type of breaker that was
invented so that you could combine GFCI or ground fault protection with afci arc fault
protection so it's both functionalities it'll both do the combination of series and parallel
arc fault finding as well as GFCI fault finding now the cool thing with this is that typically
um you know these Breakers are more expensive so like an arc fault breaker might be like 50
bucks or again depends on where you're at or anything like that but generally if you're
looking at like an arc fault breaker that's around 50 bucks a dual function breaker is going to be
around that too maybe like 60 bucks something like that so the cost of adding GFCI receptacles
to an arc fault environment is roughly the same cost so it's sometimes even cheaper sometimes a
dual function breaker that does both you don't have to have multiple different devices like a
arc fault breaker over here and then a GFCI device to make sure that in a room like a kitchen where
you have GFCI receptacles and you're still in a kitchen that's considered an arc fault environment
you can just combine all that into one device so where do we need to put dual function Breakers
if you look in code there's specifically uh arc fault places these are entire circuits so they
go by location when you're arc fault protecting something you're talking about a specific location
and all of the branch circuits the entire circuits have to be protected if you're talking about GFCI
ground faults those are specifically receptacles not necessarily locations they're receptacles
within specific locations but you're not like GFCI protecting entire um like bathroom it's
just receptacles within that bathroom so you have to think kind of on the whole about what are the
environments that need arc fault protection and then within those environments what receptacles
in these environments act actually have to have GFCI protection so there's not a whole lot of
places that have to have dual function Breakers and honestly if you just wanted to put all arc
fault breakers in a breaker in a panel and then go and take GFCI devices and put them everywhere
you can do that if you want to but a lot of places are they're not smart to actually have
a GFCI like you in a kitchen we have to put Arc full protection the entire kitchen has to be Arc
faulted every circuit all of the circuits within the kitchen have to have arc fault protection
but behind a refrigerator you're not going to put a GFCI device because then if it trips you
pull the whole refrigerator out and then trip that thing and put it back in and you know if
you keep having nuisance tripping like all your food could go bad and everything like that so it
just makes sense in that location to just have a dual function breaker out in your garage somewhere
or wherever your sub panel is at and then you're covered under both of them and then if something
occurs and there's a trip like all you have to do is go out to that panel and then if the breaker
goes bad or something like that then you're just replacing that but either way you're not having
to pull your refrigerator out time there's an issue so in code there's two different places
there's 210.8 for gfcis and 210.12 for afcis so what I've what I recommend people do is go
with The Arc Vault stuff first and figure out the environments of where you're going to be putting
all of these things in as art faults so when I start running home runs right I'm run them out
to a receptacle I'm running them out wherever in the house and then back at the panel where I'm
going to land all of these I label each one of the home runs with what it's called so I might label
it like kitchen refrigerator and then at the end of that I put a little Dash and I put AF so I know
for sure that that circuit needs to be arc fault protected and I'm thinking about this as I'm doing
and I'm running something out and when I was first starting doing it I would write an entire list of
all of I would just put Arc vaults and I would put a list of every single circuit that I knew
had to be Arc faulted because I would go into 210.12 B specifically if you're looking in the
2013 electrical code and I would figure out all of these rooms and what circuits needed to be
arc fault protected and then as I was running gsci circuits I would write next to those GF
and then when I got to a certain location that I realized oh this is an arc fault but it's also a
GFCI type of a thing then I would just write DF next to it instead of arc fault or ground fault
so that kind of helped me to figure out which ones needed DF and which ones didn't so very
quickly let's just break through what it says I'm not going to do the whole video again you can go
watch the arc fault video or the ground fault video if you want more specifics about these
but within dwellings within houses or places that people dwell it actually has in 210.12b dwelling
units and it lists these are the areas it's all 120 volt single phase loads that are 10 15 and
20 amp now that's not receptacles that's entire Branch circuits so it could be lighting circuits
that could be appliances that could be receptacles so the entire circuit in these rooms in kitchens
family rooms dining rooms living rooms parlors libraries dens bedrooms sunrooms Recreation rooms
closets hallways and laundry areas and then they put this cool thing that just says similar areas
a lot of like bigger Custom Homes like stuff that I've dealt with there's a lot of different rooms
that are called weird different things if they're kind of similar to any of these rooms then you're
going to put Arc fall protection on them the way I like to think about it is I just arc fault protect
everything because as code Cycles go on normally we're expanding the reach of where these things
are have to are going to have to be installed we're not like decreasing or taking things away
and I think as the years progress you're going to see more and more and even the ground fault
we're only talking our fault right now but even the ground fault section keeps expanding now we
have 240 volt loads that are added on to the GFCI requirements so I think at a certain point we're
probably going to get to a point where material in panels are the breakers are smart enough to
just detect both of them and every circuit has that smart ability to to detect all of
them so I kind of just generally think about the entire dwelling as needing art fault protection
um there are certain places that are are not specifically required and it's bathrooms and
Outdoors um so anytime you're you're looking uh bathrooms well garages as well bathrooms garages
and anything outdoors so those are kind of the three areas that you don't have to put art fault
protection but I mean in all reality like that could be considered a similar area it's a room
there's four walls you go in and do stuff in the rooms and then you'd leave you know it's within
a dwelling I understand that some things cause nuisance tripping some appliances and things like
that so you can't put them on our fault breaker because internally something the Machinery doesn't
like whatever's happening inside that breaker a lot of times nuisance tripping will happen where
the breakers just trip for no reason there's not actually a problem it's just that they're
detecting some kind of waveform or some some uh event they're thinking is an arc because it has
fundamental characteristics of an arc and it's very similar in some kind of way so it causes
Breakers a trip generally those are going to be in garages you might have things that you're plugging
in in a bathroom that are going to cause the breaker to trip or nuisance trip so that's
kind of why they do it but I think as you'll see especially in code like they're putting things in
here like arc welders if you look in exception two of 210.12b um again 2023 code they have something
in here about arc welding equipment so it actually says afci protection is not required for
individual Branch circuits applying an outlet for arc welding equipment right because it's an arc
detecting piece of equipment uh this breaker afci breaker and an arc welders is an arc equipment
like it produces arcs and that's how it heats up and melts metal so they're giving it a time
though it says that up until January 1st of 2025 so manufacturers are going to have to figure this
whole problem out but there are you know again I can just see the movement towards everything being
on it so it was a long rant to just say I kind of just consider the whole house as Arc full so
when you think about this think about these areas are eligible for dual function as well but Within
These environments what receptacles can be in these places that also into 10.8 require GFCI
action so in dwelling units into 10.8 a it talks specifically about dwelling units B is
other than dwelling units so we're not putting arc fault breakers in like commercial buildings
it's always dwellings or you know places where people sleep and live that we're putting all of
these things but if you skip through b and go to C now we're back to things that might actually
be in dwellings and D might be in dwellings might be in both uh e f so these things are things that
could also be indwelling so you just have to know if any of these receptacles are within an
environment that's listed for arc fault then you can put a dual function breaker on them so I would
just pick areas that it's a pain in the butt to go put a GFCI receptacle if you're thinking about
somebody living in this space do you want them to like have to go under a counter and pull all
kinds of cabinets and cleaning stuff out to put a GFCI receptacle in for a dishwasher when you could
just dual function the whole thing and not have to have that for a refrigerator behind a refrigerator
do you want to have a GFC receptacle behind that refrigerator and you could just minimize it to
that to the inconvenient loads but if you start thinking about how many you know depends where
you're getting your materials Eight dollar to twenty five dollar GFCI receptacles that you're
gonna buy how many of those do you want to add up and buy when you could just get a breaker that's
roughly the same cost as an arc fault breaker and then you've got coverage for everything neatly in
one place rather than the homeowner having to run around through the house figure out where
all of these GFCI receptacles are at not knowing if one of them is outside or tied into a laundry
circuit or something like that so that's kind of why I do it so I usually pick the kitchen
to put dual function Breakers in for pretty much everything within a kitchen so it says
that everything in a kitchen has to be arc fault protected but not necessarily everything in a
kitchen needs to be dual function because again gfcis are only the receptacles it's a place
where somebody can plug in and get shocked or electrocuted so I would look into the ground fault
stuff in 210.8 and in kitchens it specifically says receptacles in kitchens that's receptacles
period in kitchens there's a lot of receptacles in kitchens there's like vent hoods there's
refrigerators there's dishwashers disposals microwaves all kinds of stuff so all of those
have receptacles in them they're not direct wired so they need to have GFCI protection
but the entire area of a kitchen is also Arc full so you might have five or six different
circuits that are arc fault protected within a kitchen but you might only have like one or
two of those that go to receptacles and those are good candidates for putting dual function Breakers
so anything in a kitchen I would definitely put a dual function if there's receptacles
um anything in a laundry area so in uh 210.8 it says receptacles in laundry areas but it also
says in 210.12 for Arc faults that laundry areas uh is one of the places that you need to arc fault
so again you've got multiple different receptacles some houses are really big and have crazy laundry
areas they might have countertop receptacles they might have like weird charging receptacles they
might have a washer dryer things like that so all of these receptacles have to have GFCI protection
but the entire room is also something that needs to be Arc faulted so you'll get again you might
have like four or five arc fault breakers but a couple of those might be dual functions to feed
the receptacles so that you're covered under both so you don't have to use dual function Breakers
that's another thing I just want to point out is you can just use arc fault breakers and put GFCI
devices in there are going to be some circuits that you don't need either that you can just be
a regular single pole 20 or something like that I like to just keep all fault finding to a panel
so that you're not adding devices in multiple locations if you think about smart design how
easy is something to troubleshoot if you kind of cut down on all of the things that could go wrong
and do go wrong gfci's just go bad like especially outdoor gfcis wrtr gfcis they just go bad the
elements outside the nature of like the salt in the air and the moisture and all of that like it's
just exposed to the elements so I like to try to keep anything that could go wrong to a minimum and
reduce those things so I'm not having like areas in a panel where something can go on wrong and
termination's there and then terminations that are receptacle that could go wrong and then the
receptacle itself being some kind of electronic thing that could go wrong you know what I mean
I try to minimize all of that stuff as much as possible that's why I like using dual function
Breakers because it takes multi-functionality and adds it puts it one place and most of the time
I've found that the reliability of the breakers that have arc fault dual function or GFCI most
of the time those Breakers are far more reliable and they're engineered a little bit better than
these cheap little devices that you're putting in different places so I just like to do that
rather than adding multiple different devices and then a lot of times too you'll have not so
much nowadays but there was a problem where you used to put like an afci breaker in and a GFCI
receptacle and sometimes it would cause something to happen where one of them would trip the other
one or if you plugged a certain load into a GFCI receptacle on an arc fault breaker that it would
the nature of whatever was happening inside that load would create one or both of them tripping so
it's just a personal preference that's why I like doing it but anyways that is your dual function
um really it's just in wet areas that's where I would pay attention to this as of now it does
not outline in code still that we have to do bathrooms and garages and Outdoors but again
I think planning for that for the future wouldn't hurt so if you are interested in
watching the kind of more Deep dive where I talk about arc fault breakers click here if
you want to watch more specifically about ground fault breakers click here thank you
guys so much for your attention love you crazy people and I'll see in the next one