AFCI is the acronym for Arc Fault Circuit Interrupters. Did you know that every year more than forty thousand home fires are caused by problems in home wiring, like arcing and sparking? Annually, such home fires end up claiming more than three hundred and fifty lives and injure fourteen hundred victims every year. Not to mention the amount of monetary damage that they cause.

To prevent these electrical wiring related home fires, a new electrical safety device for homes called AFCI have come to the market. These AFCIs can be expected to provide enhanced protection from home fires resulting from old and unsafe home wirings.

Circuit breakers and fuses are not good enough to prevent electrical fires

One may argue, what's wrong with the good old circuit breakers and fuses? Well, it is true that circuit breakers and fuses are surely old and it is also equally true that surely as bad when it comes to preventing a house fire caused by wiring problems. Actually, circuit breakers and fuses fail to respond to early arcing and sparking conditions in home wiring. More often than not, by the time a fuse or circuit breaker actually detects such a problem and opens a circuit to defuse the condition, a home fire may have already begun.

Arc fault detection is a promising new tecnology

Consumer Product Safety Commission, or CPSC, through an extensive study found that arc fault detection to be a promising new technology to prevent home fires caused by wiring problems. Since then AFCIs have been tested rigorously both on and off the market and have been found to be quite effective when it comes to preventing home fires caused by electrical wirings.

AFCIs are required by law

Today, AFCIs have been recognized for their effectiveness in preventing home fires due to electrical wirings. According to the latest edition of the National Electrical Code, AFCIs must be installed for bedroom circuits in new residential construction, effective January 2002.

AFCIs are designed to address fire hazards

Many people sometimes confuse AFCIs with GFCIs which are ground fault circuit interrupters. Though they have a lot of similarity in their names, or rather in their acronyms, and both happen to be safety devices, they are basically different in their functionalities. GFCI devices are designed to provide protection from serious consequences of electrical shocks, unlike AFCIs. Or in other words, AFCIs are designed to address fire hazards, while GFCIs address shock hazards.

Prevention is always better than a cure

So should you install AFCIs? It is always better to protect your home to the best of your ability. Since AFCIs can prevent a serious home fire, it would be a smart thing to get one installed, especially if your house has old electrical wirings. It is true that you may have already installed home security system or other home security devices, but you shouldn't forget, such systems or devices cannot prevent a home fire caused by electrical wirings. They can only detect such fires only after they have started. So if installing AFCIs can prevent such fires, so be it. After all, prevention is always better than a cure?