At our place in Ahia, we had an AFCI-tripping issue from Day One in the master bedroom of our home (new build in '08). Every time we'd switch on the ceiling fan......BAM! The breaker would trip. I spoke with the electrician who wired the house - he said it could be a number of things (as others have pointed out already in this thread) but said it was most likely the ceiling fan motor. I didn't feel like shelling out money to replace the fan on the supposition that it MIGHT be the culprit so I tried to isolate the problem. I checked all the wiring connections at the breaker and at the wall switch - everything was tight. I swapped out the AFCI breaker with one from another bedroom - same tripping problem. So it was likely not the breaker itself since the ceiling fan in the other bedroom was the same as the one in the master (though in reality it still could have been that particular fan). Next, I removed the existing wall switch and put in just a standard off-on toggle switch for the fan as a test....................no more tripping! So our problem was with the wall switch.
Our wall switch is a multi-function device - toggle to turn on the fan lights, a slide switch along one side of the toggle to brighten/dim the lights, and another slide switch along the other side of the toggle to control the fan off/on and variable speed. I ultimately swapped the original wall switch for an identical one in the den (which was not controlled by an AFCI) and all has been fine ever since with both circuits.
The thing that seems odd to me in TV is that the contractors are using AFCIs for so many types of circuits on the newest homes - lighting circuits, non-bedroom wall receptacle circuits, etc. Our patio villa (built in '07) only has them for the bedrooms wall receptacle circuits. That's the same as what we see on newer homes back in OH.
Bill
