...It was either 1999 or 2002 when we first saw AFCI protection required for 120 volt bedroom circuits.
It was written into Code in 1999, but AFCI wasn't required to be implemented until January 2002 because nobody made one that worked yet. The only point of my response to your statement that garages and bathrooms were excluded because there was no workable solution didn't hold them back from writing it into the 1999 Code with no solution available.
The required areas keep getting added to every single code cycle, but it hasn't made it to garages, bathrooms, furnaces, unfinished rooms, yet. Why install something that doesn't work just in case it might be required in the future, in which case it wouldn't be required on an existing installation anyway unless it's being modified?
For existing installations, that is true so far. If new circuits are added, or a circuit is extended more than six feet, then AFCI is supposed to be retrofitted. In the workshop I have under construction now I do not have AFCI and am happy to get in before it is required. My state is quick to adopt new Code revisions. If I thought it was a real safety improvement, I'd implement it in advance of a Code requirement. The Code is not a best practices design manual, it is a set of minimum requirements.
AFCI protection does absolutely nothing beyond raise the price of the installation, so even if it were a permitted job, and this might be, why use them?
I'd say "very little" instead of "nothing".. The industry members of the code making panels have a vested interest in wider specification of AFCI and expanded requirements for retrofitting. They will do all they can to expand the AFCI Market because they would rather sell $60 breakers than $6 breakers, but they are going to have a hell of a time coming up with documentation to support that it does anything to reduce fire risk in the next decade or two. NFPA will have rooms full of house fire data since the requirement was fielded, but data doesn't equal conclusions. There is now 50 years of data to support the impact of GFCI's. The electrocution rate has steadily decreased over this period and one could point to the trend as "evidence" that GFCI's have improved safety. They undoubtedly have, but they cannot claim full responsibility for the improvement. That would ignore many other improvements made since then. For example, 50 years ago if you ran a drill through a power circuit in a wall, you would be holding an all metal drill by the metal handle. if you did it today you would be holding the plastic handle of a drill whose only visible metal is the chuck and bit - neither of which you hold while drilling. So, even if the particular circuit was not GFCI protected, your risk of electrocution is prevented.
By the way, as an engineer, every time I ran up on an electrician nicknamed "Sparky", there was a story to go with it. Do you have one?
