On 3/4/2009 10:36 PM The Daring Dufas spake thus:

A lot of the big wire I've run has been aluminum.
The city electrical code around here prohibits any
aluminum conductors smaller than #2 in house wiring.
All the drops from the power company are aluminum
and there are few problems with properly installed
wiring of that type. The stuff I've seen burn up
was because of the wrong type of connectors, devices
and lack of anti-oxidation compound. Ignorance kills.

I'd never use aluminum in my own work. Not that there's anything
intrinsically wrong with it, as you describe; just that I'm not
experienced enough with it not to worry about problems.

Hasn't the cost of copper dropped over the last few months (along with
oil)? According to Bloomberg, it's selling for about $168 a pound
(copper futures: http://bloomberg.com/markets/commodities/cfutures.html).


--
Made From Pears: Pretty good chance that the product is at least
mostly pears.
Made With Pears: Pretty good chance that pears will be detectable in
the product.
Contains Pears: One pear seed per multiple tons of product.

(with apologies to Dorothy L. Sayers)