wrote in
:
snip
I have had a few
outlets basically wear out - to the point plugs don't want to stay in,
and they then tend to arc and warm up internally - so I've started
replacing all with CoAlr devices. Significantly cheaper for each
device than the special wire nuts required to "pig tail" all the
wiring with copper, and with the advantage you are not adding another
pair of connections to go bad at each device.

Interesting. I work for an electrical supply/contractor shop. We were
quoted around $4 for aluminum rated receptacles by our wholesaler.
Marr #63 copper to aluminum rated wire nuts are only around 40 cents
each.

http://www.tnb-
canada.com/en/catalogues/online/comresconstruction/pdf/c5/09
_marrcat_e.pdf

(that link probably is going to be wrapped)

The insurance companies are requiring inspection of all aluminum wired
homes before new coverage is issued - and are reccomending the
"pig-tail" route.

Insurance companies are being a real pain lately WRT wiring. The latest
thing is not insuring houses with less than 100A services. Apparently
your house is more likely to catch fire if you have a 60A service. It
could be a completely modern, still in production 60A breaker panel
retrofit a few years ago to get rid of the ancient 4ct fuse panel in your
60 year old house or a tiny house built just a couple years ago but now
you can't get insurance. Pfft.

For houses with aluminum wire they have been asking for an "inspection"
but it takes us quite a while to pull out of them exactly what they want
inspected. Do we pull apart every single box to see that the devies are
CoAlr rated? Do we check a random sample? A random sample has been
acceptable to most. That seems silly. One retrofit Cu only receptacle
somewhere in the house that you don't catch could still overheat and burn
the place down. But it was inspected...

My dad, a retired electrician, cringes at the pigtails because the
boxes are generally too full when finished to be safe, in his
judgement. The aluminum wiring generally has to be bent to too short a
radius to tuck all the wires and the device into the box.
snip

Usually there is already a splice in the box, unless they've used the two
screws on receptacles to feed through to the rest of a circuit. You can
just remove the existing wire nut and restrip and replace with a copper
pigtail, Marr 63 nut and a reguar Cu device. Box fill should be fine
unless it's a tiny box. They don't allow us to feed through receptacles
anymore, pigtails are required if the circuit continues on so we're stuck
with using them - might as well be copper.

Mike