Hello,

I recentley replaced my stove and found that the existing wire was #4
aluminum 3 wire + 1 uninsulated ground. When changing the stove I had
to also change the outlet from a 3 wire to 4 wire outlet, but found I
did not have enough slack in the existing to make the new connections.
As a result, I cut open the wall and put a splice box (exposed) and
spliced in a pigtail of #8 copper. I made the splices using AL/CU
split bolts and taped them up real good. Before sliding the stove
back I ran everything on full for 10 minutes and checked all
connections - they were all cool. I also verified ground and neutral
were not open.


Given all the issues with aluminum wire I will be replacing this very
soon, but would like some feedback on this temp installation. Is it
safe for the short term? I DID NOT use antioxidant on the aluminum
wire at the splices.

Thanks in advance.

Larger gauge, multi strand aluminum wire is not and has not been a problem.
What you did is fine. The CU-AL split bolt has a separator that keeps the
dissimilar metals apart and should be fine as a permanent fix



wrote in message
ps.com...
Hello,

I recentley replaced my stove and found that the existing wire was #4
aluminum 3 wire + 1 uninsulated ground. When changing the stove I had
to also change the outlet from a 3 wire to 4 wire outlet, but found I
did not have enough slack in the existing to make the new connections.
As a result, I cut open the wall and put a splice box (exposed) and
spliced in a pigtail of #8 copper. I made the splices using AL/CU
split bolts and taped them up real good. Before sliding the stove
back I ran everything on full for 10 minutes and checked all
connections - they were all cool. I also verified ground and neutral
were not open.


Given all the issues with aluminum wire I will be replacing this very
soon, but would like some feedback on this temp installation. Is it
safe for the short term? I DID NOT use antioxidant on the aluminum
wire at the splices.

Thanks in advance.

although you really should put antiox on the connection



"RBM" rbm2(remove wrote in message
...
Larger gauge, multi strand aluminum wire is not and has not been a
problem. What you did is fine. The CU-AL split bolt has a separator that
keeps the dissimilar metals apart and should be fine as a permanent fix



wrote in message
ps.com...
Hello,

I recentley replaced my stove and found that the existing wire was #4
aluminum 3 wire + 1 uninsulated ground. When changing the stove I had
to also change the outlet from a 3 wire to 4 wire outlet, but found I
did not have enough slack in the existing to make the new connections.
As a result, I cut open the wall and put a splice box (exposed) and
spliced in a pigtail of #8 copper. I made the splices using AL/CU
split bolts and taped them up real good. Before sliding the stove
back I ran everything on full for 10 minutes and checked all
connections - they were all cool. I also verified ground and neutral
were not open.


Given all the issues with aluminum wire I will be replacing this very
soon, but would like some feedback on this temp installation. Is it
safe for the short term? I DID NOT use antioxidant on the aluminum
wire at the splices.

Thanks in advance.

Meat Plow wrote:
On Mon, 25 Jun 2007 17:07:02 -0700, njhomeowner wrote:

Hello,

I recentley replaced my stove and found that the existing wire was #4
aluminum 3 wire + 1 uninsulated ground. When changing the stove I had
to also change the outlet from a 3 wire to 4 wire outlet, but found I
did not have enough slack in the existing to make the new connections.
As a result, I cut open the wall and put a splice box (exposed) and
spliced in a pigtail of #8 copper. I made the splices using AL/CU
split bolts and taped them up real good. Before sliding the stove
back I ran everything on full for 10 minutes and checked all
connections - they were all cool. I also verified ground and neutral
were not open.


Given all the issues with aluminum wire I will be replacing this very
soon, but would like some feedback on this temp installation. Is it
safe for the short term? I DID NOT use antioxidant on the aluminum
wire at the splices.

Thanks in advance.

Your triplex coming from the pole pig is likely aluminum also. Not a worry
in the world.


The rather well known problems with aluminum wire are with 15 and 20A
circuits.

Like RBM I always use antioxidant(but it is not required unless the
split bolt manufacturer includes it in the instructions). Otherwise you
made the same fix an electrician would.

--
bud--