Your home's electrical

For those of you who have bought a new home in the past 4 or 5 years and have a building code, similar to ours in Mississippi, you have somrthing called "Arc fault preventers" in your electrical sub panel. These are little yellow buttons on the breakers that go to your bedrooms. The purpose of them is to keeping the electricity from "Arcing" from one plug to the other in a bedroom, possibly causing a fire. Now, most of us know what GFCI circuits are. They became building code several years ago. In your home, where there is water, kitchen, baths, laundry and exterior, your circuits are protected. That is, if you have a sink full of water and drop an electrical appliance in it. The power will shut off instead of shocking you. These controls are located on some of the outlet faces, not all. Just because you don't have that square thing on your outlet, doesn't mean that it is not GFCI. You can test it with a circuit tester. The good part of Arc Faults is that it can prevent arcing. The bad part is that, if you plug something into your bedroom plugs that pulls more than 15 amps, ( A hair Dryer, iron, treadmill, etc.), your breaker will shut off. You must plug that appliance into a hall plug or some other spot. If this should happen, go to your subpanel, find the little yellow buttons and take that beaker and reset it. I hope this answers question for some. Thanks for reading. Steve Houck