The 2014 edition of the National Electrical Code (NEC) added kitchens and laundry rooms to the list of areas of the home that require AFCI (Arc Fault Circuit Interrupter) protection. Since those rooms were already code mandated to have GFCI (Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter) protection, both are now necessary. It is possible to combine both in the DFCI (Dual Function Circuit Interrupter, shown above), either as a circuit breaker in the panel or as the receptacle in the circuit. 

    While the year that the NEC added a new location requirement is easy to define, each local juridiction’s building codes don’t necessarily adopt the latest edition of the NEC immediately. The state of Florida, for example, did not make the 2011 NEC effective until mid-2015. Other jurisdictions have sometimes waited even longer to adopt a newer NEC edition and, to complicate things further, they might make amendments that exclude parts of the newest requirements. So the year when the NEC first required GFCI-protection for a new receptacle location can be several years before your local building department adopted that edition of the code and began enforcing it.