I'll go first second....
AFCI - AKA Arc Fault Circuit Breakers (ok, I for Interrupters)
I had to pull out the 100% working, $4, 15 amp breakers when finishing my basement and replace them with $36, 20 amp AFCI breakers per code. Now I am fighting nuisance tripping.
My last basement had a single 15 amp (non-AFCI breaker) that worked for everything as long as you didn’t plug in a heater and hair dryer into the bathroom at the same time. It ran my theater, game room, tons of lighting, etc. No issues.
Now, with these massively expensive breakers, I get nuisance tripping about once every couple of weeks. My investigations have discovered that it isn’t the wiring, or the load (I’ve got 8 circuits down there), but WHAT is plugged in. Plug in a vacuum onto a circuit with anything but just the lights on, and that AFCI will pop. Use a small paper shredder in the same scenario, and the AFCI will pop. Play my pinball machine (which has 4 electro magnets in it that turn on and off depending on game play), and have just a couple of other things plugged in, and that AFCI will pop.
I plugged in a monitoring device to see what kinds of loads I am getting, and even with the vacuum, or shredder, or pinball magnets running, I am not going over something like 10 amps… ever…
Find out that AFCI are known to do this with exactly the types of things causing them to trip. What a bunch of crap. I would put in a $4 breaker in the office (paper shredder), and game room (where it is most problematic), but then if there is some sort of house fire, even if caused by something completely separate from the basement electrical, there are stories of insurance claim denials. Ugh.
At least nothing in my theater, which actually draws a decent amount of amps, never trips.
