I have a two-pole arc fault breaker that is on its own. It’s used for a bedroom with one circuit used for a plug in wall heater. The other circuit is for the remaining outlets and lights in the room.
I get intermittent tripping of the arch fault breaker when the garbage disposal, which is on a completely different circuit, is on or an electric saw is plugged into an exterior outlet. Why would a separate circuit trip the arc fault?
My solution was to put both bedroom circuits under a single pole arch fault breaker. Did I not use the two pole arc fault breaker correctly?
Thanks.
Best Answer
Motor loads put a large amount of noise on the line, I have seen this on systems that are separate circuits just another weak point in the arc fault devices. Arc faults have trouble with motor loads, light dimmers that are heavily loaded and electronic ballasts. If the noise on the line is high the arc fault thinks it is part of the circuit. A quality whole house surge suppressor at the service panel may solve this problem.