Any electricians?
Thread Starter
On The Tree
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 162
Likes: 0
From: Arlington, TX
Any electricians? The lady and I are moving in to a house soon and we had our inspection done yesterday. Everything came back pretty good, but I wanted to see if someone could explain this issue to me a little better and tell me how much I'm looking at paying. This is a copy of the report he gave us. Thank for your help. The last issue...I think I can handle. ha ha
Check with your local city inspector. I believe your house is grandfathered as far as the AFCI requirements.
You can get the snap in blanks from Home Depot or Lowes, and put them in yourself. About 1-2 dollars each....looks like you need 4-6, panel is a General Electric.
To install the GFCI breakers in the panel, an electrician may just charge you a service call, plus breakers......prolly 100 bucks or less.
He states "current" code, if this house was not built within the last year, ARCI may not apply......
T,
You can get the snap in blanks from Home Depot or Lowes, and put them in yourself. About 1-2 dollars each....looks like you need 4-6, panel is a General Electric.
To install the GFCI breakers in the panel, an electrician may just charge you a service call, plus breakers......prolly 100 bucks or less.
He states "current" code, if this house was not built within the last year, ARCI may not apply......
T,
the open spaces in the panel box are a simple fix, home depot or lowes has them. also if they happen to not have them for a GE(general electric) panel, the ones for a Cutler Hammer BR-series panel will also work. the blank plates just snap in, should be easy enough.
as far as the garage outlets not being GFCI-protected, it will be more economical and convenient to install a GFCI outlet on the first outlet in the circuit. the outlet costs less than the breaker and if/when it trips (you are supposed to test it to insure it still works once a month) you go to the outlet to reset it, instead of having to go to the panel box and look for it there.
as far as the arc-fault breakers go, it says that it was built when they were required by NEC code. i assume what happened was they started tripping off prematurely and the homeowner replaced them with normal breakers, common practice as the early runs of arc-fault breakers were plagued with problems.
the last issue, not sure if you have attempted to fix it yet, but if its not the bulb, it could run into a problem if its not just a bad lighting fixture or switch.
as far as the garage outlets not being GFCI-protected, it will be more economical and convenient to install a GFCI outlet on the first outlet in the circuit. the outlet costs less than the breaker and if/when it trips (you are supposed to test it to insure it still works once a month) you go to the outlet to reset it, instead of having to go to the panel box and look for it there.
as far as the arc-fault breakers go, it says that it was built when they were required by NEC code. i assume what happened was they started tripping off prematurely and the homeowner replaced them with normal breakers, common practice as the early runs of arc-fault breakers were plagued with problems.
the last issue, not sure if you have attempted to fix it yet, but if its not the bulb, it could run into a problem if its not just a bad lighting fixture or switch.
Thread Starter
On The Tree
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 162
Likes: 0
From: Arlington, TX
Why do they have you paying for the repairs? the sell is suppose to pay for any repairs to get it up to code.
Sometimes they owner will just get bids and leave the money in escrow for you to get who ever you want to complete the work. It should not be any cost to you... Without looking it up, I do not think Arc Fault breakers were enforced in 99'
Sometimes they owner will just get bids and leave the money in escrow for you to get who ever you want to complete the work. It should not be any cost to you... Without looking it up, I do not think Arc Fault breakers were enforced in 99'
