ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Aluminum Wiring

Bren,

I have had a lot of electricians, tell me all you have to do is pigtail, and when i ask them how they do it, they reply "just wirenut a copper wire to the al wire", what they have done is made a bad situation worse, i live in an area where we have a large number of AL wired homes, so i get a chance to see a lot of the problems, that were created with bad fixes, if you ask why they did the fix, they will tell you, "what am i to do tell the homeowner he has to rewire his whole house, it appears that everyone is in denial over this issue, and i can understand why, the homeowner with the largest investment of his life, cannot accept, that their investment may have potential problems, so the easy way out is to deny, that there is a problem.
Most of the fried work we see, is where the homeowner put a dimmer switch on an alum circuit, or where recessed lighting has been added and extended from an Alum circuit.
We recommend rewire, or have the connections cold welded by a certified contractor.

[This message has been edited by LK (edited 07-01-2005).]

u2slow
That was just about the time that the new alloy aluminum conductors and CO/ALR devices hit the market. That combination of products has about the same failure rate as a copper system.
Don

Last year, I had bought a home wired in AL. I I changed the service and added a sub panel upstairs, and installed new copper to the important heavy load areas. Kitchen, Laundry, Bathrooms, completly re-wired a Family Den. I didn't gut the AL 100%. Where I did leave it, was areas with very small loads.
I hate the stuff, but where I did leave it, I was like a Doctor, checking every Box, and installed switches and outlets designed for CU/Al. I might add the AFCI breakers to the AL I had to leave, for extra protection. House was built in 1974.