The Data Rat wrote:

My house has aluminum wiring. New Years day, the lights in 3 rooms were
flickering badly and there was an awful smell in the utility room where the
circuit breaker box is. I noticed smoke coming from one of the top breakers
so I switched it off. Later, the lights were still flickering and I noticed
the smell again and saw a breaker at the bottom was actually sizzling so I
turned off the main breaker. No breakers ever tripped.

The electrician came the next day and pulled out the bottom breaker and said
it had been on fire on the inside and what I was smelling was melting
plastic. He said it was really old, and he had not seen a blue breaker in
years. I told him to replace all of the breakers then, and he said the rest
looked good. (he didn't pull them all out, he said he could tell they were
newer.) I have had 4 replaced since I have lived here, (3 years) so maybe
the previous owner had some replaced. Not sure.

Anyway, a week later, my daughter pointed out an electrical outlet that
looked lightening was in it... would this be arcing? This was a Saturday
night, so I turned off the power and pulled the outlet out and put wire caps
on each wire. But then I had no power to most of the outlets in the house,
so I assume they are connected.

I went to Lowe's and bought a new receptacle. The man there said it may or
may not be a bad outlet, that it could be the aluminum wire was loose,
especially since we had a really cold spell followed by record breaking warm
weather. He said that if it was his house, he would "piggy back" it...use
copper wire and wire nuts to keep the aluminum and copper together, then
make all the attachments to the outlets with copper. He showed me how to do
it and I could do it myself, but is this the right thing to do?

If I wouldn't have been here, I am 100% my house would have burned down. I
asked about having all the aluminum wire ripped out and replaced by copper,
but was told that was totally unfeasible, that I should just move if I was
that afraid of aluminum wiring. I was also told to pull each outlet once a
year and tighten the screws, which I think is pretty high maintenance.

Thanks for all your help! I worry every time I leave the house now!

Suzi


That new receptacle needs to be approved for aluminum wiring. The right
thing to do is make sure each receptacle is approved for AL, and tighten
the screws periodically. Or splice a copper pigtail on the ends of the
AL wire with a special wirenut or clamp that is made for mixing CU and AL.

BTW, this is only a problem with small gauges of AL wire. The big stuff
(#8 and larger) is OK, so you don't need to worry about the electric
range circuit, etc.

I think arc-fault breakers would catch this problem with loose wires, so
you might want to check into that.

Best regards,
Bob