Anyone know anything useful about these?
A month ago, my brother moved into a 14-month-old house in central Florida. All is well, meaning everything has worked as expected during that month.
A few days ago, he had some guys in to begin installing a pool. One of them plugged a big drill into an outdoor outlet, and spun the drill. All was well until the load was applied to the drill (drilling into concrete). The breaker for that circuit popped. This was not an AFCI circuit.
After the guys finished up, my brother noted that power to the bedroom outlets was out. He used a squeaker (non-contact voltage sensor) to nose around, and discovered that ALL FIVE AFCIs in the breaker panel appear to be defective. Defective meaning that no power comes out of the AFCI, no matter how he fiddles with test button, reset button, and breaker on-off handle.
Since everything worked before, we assume that the installation was done correctly, and the problem is due to something that happened recently - perhaps the drill incident, perhaps not. I cannot imagine any fault that would trip all 5 AFCIs without tripping anything else. I cannot imagine how the drill incident, on a separate circuit, could trip/destroy all five AFCIs.
The big tornado a couple weeks ago was 20 miles north of them. Could a lightning strike associated with that have caused the problem? Are these things more sensitive to lightning surges than GFCIs, of which there are several in the house?
Thanks for any thoughts
Bill Jeffrey