MORGANTOWN — The National Home Builders Association and the Home Builders Association of West Virginia contacted The Dominion Post on Wednesday to offer their views on the proposal to change state building code regarding the installation of Arc Fault Circuit Interrupters in new home construction.
AFCIs are circuit breakers, used in place of conventional breakers, that shut off the power when they detect an arc in the wiring. The Legislative Rule Making Review Committee was expected to take up the code update and a proposed amendment during the latter half of a scheduled 12-hour meeting on Wednesday.
One line in this particular rule would update the state’s adoption of the National Electric Code from the 2014 edition to the 2017 edition. Current code requires AFCIs in all areas of a newly built home except the garage, an unfinished basement, a bathroom or the home’s exterior unless there’s a device in a room connected to the exterior that would require it.
The NHBA says on its website says, “The electrical problems AFCIs are designed to prevent occur overwhelmingly in older dwellings built to outdated codes. Since the 1990s, numerous changes have been made in both the NEC and product safety standards which mitigate against similar fires in newer homes—even as they age. For that reason, NAHB and other housing affordability advocates see their inclusion as an unnecessary expense.”
Kent Pauley, of Morgantown and president of the West Virginia association, said that the committee will be considering an amendment proposed by the state Fire Commission to limit AFCIs to circuits powering bedrooms – an amendment supported by the builders.
Craig Drumheller, associate vice president for Construction Codes and Standards for NAHB clarified that NAHB authored the amendment.
Drumheller said NAHB’s updated cost numbers to go from no AFCIs to include kitchen, common rooms, bathrooms, and finished basements as required in the 2017 NEC would require 21 AFCIs at an additional piece cost of $61.47 totaling $1,291 for a typical 2,500 square foot home.
Consumers are often not pleased with arc fault interrupters, he said. There are many problems with nuisance tripping of the arc-faults, hair dryers, refrigerators and vacuum cleaners are often incompatible with arc-fault interrupters.
Pauley said it’s not so much a pocketbook issue as a practicality issue. While they’ve been required by the NEC since 2002, AFCIs aren’t perfected yet.
And, for example, he said, expanding on Drumheller’s nuisance trips, in the Eastern Panhandle, many basements have sump pumps, and when the water rises, the pump motor action trips the AFCI. While AFCIs are initially more expensive than regular breakers, he said, the real expense comes when an electrician or other contractor has to visit the home to deal with the damaged caused when the equipment shuts down.
The builders had also hoped to limit the required placement of tamper resistant receptacles below three feet, because elderly residents have trouble plugging things into them and the lower-level placement would still protect children, Pauley said. But the Fire Commission stood by the current requirement and the builders yielded on that.
As reported on Wednesday, the state chapter of the International Association of Electrical Inspectors along with fire safety inspectors and experts across the state and several national companies and organizations say the potential danger to lives and property merits keeping the current AFCI requirement in code.
After the committee votes on Wednesday, the rule adopting the code – amended or not – will go before the full Legislature during the regular session for continued vetting and possible further amendment.
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