Born2 wrote:
I have a house with Aluminum wiring throughout. My electrician replace all
plugs and switches with new ones. Tightened up the electrical box. My
electrician said it will need to be tightened in anther 30yrs because of how
soft the aluminum wire is, which is fine for me.

A few people (Home Inspector / Another electrician) told me I should replace
it with copper because of a fire hazard.

I'm going with my friend electrician who says its fine for another 30yrs.

Thoughts?


Replacing the wiring is pretty much prohibited by cost.

The best site on aluminum wiring I have seen is:
http://www.inspect-ny.com/aluminum/aluminum.htm
Last time I looked most of the information at the site was derived from
a Consumer Product Safety Commission investigation, which spent a lot of
time looking at aluminum wiring (and tried to force a recall).

The best link at the site for options is:
http://www.inspect-ny.com/aluminum/alreduce.htm
This is written by a professional engineer who did extensive research on
aluminum connections for the CPSC. Based on the research, the paper has
a wide range of fixes, including just monitoring. Using rated CO/ALR
devices is one option, but there is a recommended procedure for making
the connection including applying antioxide paste to the wire then
abrading the wire to remove the surface layer of aluminum oxide, which
is an insulator. There is also a detailed procedure for making
connections with wirenuts.

The only fix recommended by the CPSC is using special COPALUM high
pressure crimp connections which can only be done by a trained
electrician using a special tool; quite expensive if you can even find
the electrician.

If I had aluminum wiring I would at least go through circuits that are
likely to have high amp loads, redo all wirenut connections, and pigtail
out copper wires to receptacles - using the recommendations in the
alreduce paper.

bud--