Aluminum Wire

[Stephen howe]

I am concerned that electricians may be looking for change orders substituting aluminum wiring for the copper. There is no prohibition for the use of aluminum wire if all connections meet NEC requirements. I have found the following articles which may shed some addition light on this subject.
http://www.statefarm.com/consumer/vhouse/articles/aluminum.htm
http://www.inspect-ny.com/aluminum/aluminum.htm

What are your experiences/knowlege regarding the use or problems with the use of aluminum wire?

[raider1]

There is no problem with properly installed aluminum conductors in my opinion.

Chris

[haskindm]

I agree. Properly installed Aluminum wiring is very satisfactory. I would much rather see properly installed aluminum than improperly installed copper.

[JROD]

I haven't had much experience with aluminum wiring branch circuits. I did have a customer whose insurance company told him that they would cancel his policy unless he had a licensed electrician replace all of the aluminum wiring in his building.

[don_resqcapt19]

The problems in the cited sources are about small branch circuit size aluminum conductors. As far as I know there are not any #10 or #12 aluminum conductors on the market at this time. That may soon change if the price of copper stays where it is.
Even with the small size aluminum conductors, there have been few problems with the newer alloy conductors used with CO/ALR devices. These items came into the market around 1973. The problems shown in the cited sources predate the new alloy material.
Don

[dduffee260]

We are starting to use alot of aluminum feeders. It really seems to work fine and is a ton less money.

[bkludecke]

C'mon, where are all the "do it proper do it copper" guys? How can we have a debate if we all agree? For the record, we use aluminum conductors quite frequently. The terminations are the key to any successful installation and copper seems to be a bit more forgiving than al, but that shouldn't worry a pro.

Bob on the left coast.