29 Apr
2012
29 Apr
'12
6:54 p.m.
On Apr 29, 2012, at 9:02 PM, Steven Hirsch wrote:
On Sun, 29 Apr 2012, Chuck Guzis wrote:
Yes and no. Regular wiring (light and outlet circuits) must be copper,
but bulk stuff (especially the residential service coming into the
breaker box from the transformer) is high-bulk aluminum. I'm not 100%
certain (I'm not an electrician), but I believe a lot of the problems
A bigger issue for me is that the wiring from the
panel for these
heavy-current-draw appliances is aluminum (copper for the general
lighting and receptacles). Among the electricians here, there's no
consenus about what it takes to connect it to the copper leads of the
appliance. The old timers insist that ordinary wire nuts are fine--
some others insist on the grease-filled (gray) wire nuts. Nobody
advocates anything fancier (such as a copper pigtail with compression
fitting).
Wasn't aluminum house wiring outlawed in the US during the 70s? I recall something
about a rash of fires due to wiring in device boxes cracking at the screw terminals.
from aluminum house wiring came from a combination of
cold-flowing
aluminum on wire joints (which eventually produced loose joints and
thus arcs) and overloaded circuits with underspecified wire that
copper (with its lower resistive coefficient) would have handled just
fine.
I wouldn't be surprised if the really high-current wire to an air
conditioning compressor were high-bulk aluminum. It's one of the few
things it's useful for in house wiring.
In general, all-aluminum house wiring is more a sign that someone's
done the wiring on the cheap long ago, so it's often more of a canary
than an actual hazard.
- Dave