re: AFCI Breaker Issue *SOLVED*

You can, it is all about your comfort level though.

What was recommended to me as a novice.
Kill all the breakers in the panel
Kill the main breaker coming in
Replace the breaker
Power on the main breaker
Power on the individual circuits

Apparently there is no real issue hot swapping them or with throwing the main with all the breakers on, but there are risk factors that aren't necessary for a novice.

Took me just a few minutes. Replaced with a regular breaker since I thought the AFCI was bad. Turns out the AFCI was actually correct and I ended up popping the traditional breaker later with a bit of a light show.

Finally fixed my problem this past week.

my dealings with tracing the AFCI


Turns out that piece of romex on the bottom right is run under the house from the outlet on the left to the outlet on the right. So likely when the foundation work was done the wire was sandwiched or shot.