[Shop-talk] aluminum house wiring

[David C.]

My folks bought a house in '70 that was wired with aluminum.  Most of 
the houses in the subdivision were, and there were a lot of house fires, 
mostly in the attics, as I recall.  They were 1 1/2 story homes with 
shake roofs in Houston; I suspect he attics got pretty hot.  I believe 
my dad eventually replaced most of the outlets and switches, and I 
remember seeing some of them that were pretty scorched.  I believe one 
fix was to wire-nut copper pigtails to the aluminum wires using a paste 
anti-oxide compound on the joint under the wire nut, then wiring the new 
outlets to the copper wire as normal.  As someone also mentioned, the 
NEC would be a good place to look; I suspect there is a section on 
retrofitting aluminum wiring, but I haven't looked lately.

Dave C


Eric J Russell wrote:
> My son bought a house built in 1969. I discovered that it has aluminum 
> wiring. Anything special I need to be aware of? Our plan is to replace 
> most of the switches & outlets to change from 'ivory' to white (plus 
> many have paint smeared on them from prior owner's painting efforts).
> 
> Eric Russell
> Mebane, NC
> http://home.mebtel.net/~ejrussell
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