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The last 20 years of Home Power Have Been Amazing

In the late 1990s I installed my first electric panels. Mostly for the sake of running a safe woodworking workshop but also to enable the multiple window units and my partner and my offices, plus the TV and stereo, of course.

At that time whole house surge protectors were available but not required. Being an IT guy in a storm prone area of course I went for it. Otherwise however breakers were rather similar to those from the original mid 1960s versions. I mean, I’m sure there were improvements in panel technology and how breakers were manufactured but for the home there were really only two aspects you needed to care about:

  • Current capacity
  • Poles (1 or 2)

And for the home owner that’s were things stood for almost 40 years. In the last 20 years though much has changed. Arc fault (AFCI or CAFCI) first required in 2002 for bedrooms. Now (since 2017) they are required practically everywhere in a home. Whole house SPDs (surge protectors) are required from 2020.

Most recently, the 2023 NEC greatly expanded the use of Ground Fault (GFCI) protection. GFCI’s which were limited to kitchen and bath outlets are now required for your washer and dryer, microwave, range, dishwasher and (in my case) garbage disposal. Take a look at any modern panel. You’ll see 4 different types of breakers:

  • Old fashioned
  • GFCI (white test button)
  • CAFCI (dark blue test button)
  • Combined GFCI + CAFCI (pale blue test button)

And outlets? Have you noticed weather resistant (WR, 2008) or tamper resistant (TR, 2008) requirements? In addition to GFCI requirements. Sheesh. It’s a marvel any electrician can keep them all straight, let alone a home owner.

Of all these improvements though the only one I'd suggest you rush out and get is the whole house surge suppressor unless your breaker panel is running 40 years old in which case a replacement may be a good idea soon.

erik_squires

Showing 1 response by rajugsw

rajugsw
224 posts
 

Two years ago, we spent $10k with a licensed electrical contractor to get our aging yet still safe and working electrical panel replaced. This included getting the Power Company to change out the feed from the pole mounted Transformer. 

I had already ran two dedicated 20A lines into my living room. A 10AWG stranded line for all the audio crap and 12AWG Romex (solid core) line for the TV and computer crap including the Streamer. No more lights dancing in the living when the Subs kicked in or or noise/hum issues. Old or new Service Panel.

No sonic improvement of course over the old box which should signs of "yellowing" on the bus bars.

Living in Phoenix, the box in mounted outdoors and they did include a whole home surge protector. Funny thing was. When the Inspector came and saw how I'd layed out the two dedicated lines throughout my garage on the floor. He had a good laugh. In his words. This look like crap but it's all legal. I'd installed a junction box insode the garage and fed the two 20 A lines into it and then via flexible Armoured Cable, ran H,N,GND wires inside the one conduit while the other was 12-2 Romex inside flex armoured conduit.

Yeah, I could have just bought a PS Audio P20 for that kinda money but this minimizes any future risk and now my service also has been upgraded to a 200A service.

Came in handy when we installed an electric 220VAC dryer. I had them put a breaker in for future use. I had to punch a new hole in the top of the box and run a bit of conduit out into the garage. 

 

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