I am in the minority opinion but I think all the aluminum wired houses that were going to burn down, already did. Virtually every horror story you see or read is 30 years old in spite of the fact that there are still millions of aluminum homes out there since 1970. This appears to be as much a workmanship problem as a materials problem. Aluminum is a lot less forgiving than copper and screwing with it seems to increase the danger. One question I would like to see answered is how many of these problems were caused by "Harry Homeowner" in there?
Certainly the owners of an aluminum house should be more vigilent, keep fresh batteries in the smoke detectors and should call an electrician at the first sign of trouble but they shouldn't be shivvering in fear.
The Alcan guys make a pretty good case that those 1970s problems were fixed with the new alloy, different metals in the binding screws and the fact that most lugs are aluminum in the first place. They have tests that say aluminum wire in an aluminum lug is actually better than copper wire. They weren't actually selling us 12-10 ga stuff (although the samples looked like uninsulated 10) but they were certainly saying 8 and up was a fine material.
I also reminded myself these guys are aluminum salesmen. What did we expect them to say. The Carlon guy puts on a good show too, when he is selling Smurf tube.
[This message has been edited by gfretwell (edited 05-06-2006).]
