On Wed, 30 Aug 2006 14:15:24 GMT, "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?



IMHO, I am not your electrician, or own your home:

Aluminum wire is safe. Before the flames, I still use it, and many
electricians use it for service enterance cables. Services are almost
100% inspected, so they are they are looked at enough to prevent
future problems.

It is when unsafely used, it becomes unsafe. The NEC addresses the
safe installation of Aluminum, and when electricians don't use the
codes, is when dangerious situations happen. So I think we can all
agree, only dangerious wiring is wiring an unsafe electrician
installed.

Contact your insurance company, see if they 'cover' your home. Check
with electrical code enforcement. Add this to your ablity to reason,
and then decide your course of action.

If I had aluminum wiring in my house, I would ensure all
connections(where the problems generally happen) were safe. Meaning I
would pig tail all ends with copper, so I can use regular receptacles,
and check all existing connections for the proper wire nuts. Then if
I was still concerned, I would put an arc-fault protection on those
circuits, since it's the arcing at bad connections in the past that
has caused problems, not the wire itself. The AFCI breakers might be
cheaper than rewiring a whole house. But then this is me trying to
guess about wiring, I do not currently have.

Was your current electrican licensed, and insured? You only want
qualified persons working on your house.

later,

tom