If a circuit doesn’t have fault interruption and excessive charges aren’t stopped, they can shock you, start a fire, or cause permanent damage to your electrical panel. The two major types of fault protection are GFCI or AFCI, not GFCI and GFI. There is a technical difference between GFI and GFCI—one is at the outlet; the other is at the circuit breaker. Frankly, even professional electricians don’t treat this distinction as important since both the breaker and the outlet accomplish the same thing. [2] X Research source
Ground faults are most often caused when outlets are exposed to moisture or water, since water is an excellent conduit for electricity.
Unless you live in a home that’s 30+ years old and the electrical panel has never been worked on, you should already have AFCI breakers in your electrical panel for all of your outlets.
Again, it’s very rare that you come across an outlet or circuit that doesn’t have arc protection these days. Otherwise, you’d have a fire on your hands every time you nail a picture into a wall and nick a wire or get a mouse in your walls chewing on cables. There are a few states where AFCI protection isn’t legally required, but frankly, there’s zero good reason to build a modern electrical panel without arc protection.
The buttons are typically red and black, but they’ll sometimes be the same color as the outlet for aesthetic reasons.
