How Circuit Breakers Prevent Fire Hazards



Posted: Saturday, May 13, 2006

by
Accurate Inspections, Inc

Circuit breakers do not prevent electric shock. They will only trip if defects occur that are acute enough to heat up wiring within the walls of the home. Do not ever count on a circuit breaker to protect your life because they will not do so.

GFCI or ground fault current interupters are designed to turn off prior to your getting a fatal electric shock. One should use the test button on them once a month or so to exersize the circuit and avoid failure that can result in electric shock.

AFCI or arc fault current interupters are new circuit breakers designed to stop house fires from occuring. They are expensive and new to the market.

Smart use of GFCI and AFCI circuit breakers can be a major safety upgrade to older homes that lack these more modern protective devices.

Installation of GFCI and AFCI should be left to electrical contractors. As a home inspector I see many homes a week where well intended home owners created far more hazards than they solved.





Michael Del Greco is President of Accurate Inspections, Inc. A New Jersey home inspection firm. He has performed thousands of home inspections in New Jersey since 1993. He has taught the New Jersey Home Inspector Licensing classes and New Jersey Home Inspector CEU classes as well as participated in developing questions for the National Home Inspector Exam. Michael's home inspector resume may be viewed at http://www.mdelgreco.com

Visit http://home-inspector.NewJerseyHomeInspection.com for a list of home inspectors in New Jersey.

This article may be freely reproduced if it is not altered and the above two lines are reproduced with active hot links.

This Article has been viewed 814 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
No comments yet.
We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.