Almost toasted a house last month in Tulsa because of reused aluminum wire

Got called to a job where someone had swapped out old outlets and switches but left the original aluminum wire in place. Terminals were all loose and arcing behind the drywall. Found burn marks around three boxes. Had to rip out and rewire the whole first floor. How often do you guys actually see people mixing old aluminum with new copper devices without adapting?

2 comments

2 Comments

michaels9520d ago

Because of reused aluminum wire" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. I see it a lot more than I'd like, but usually it's the opposite problem - people use copper rated devices on aluminum without the anti-oxidant paste, or they just twist aluminum and copper together with a wire nut and call it good. That arcing you found is the classic result. Alumiconns or Copalum crimps are the only fixes I trust, anything else is a gamble.

xena_fisher4920d agoProlific Poster

Get some Noalox and put it on before you torque down any aluminum wire connections, even with rated devices. I've seen guys skip that step and come back to a melted switch six months later. It's cheap insurance that takes ten seconds to apply.