Aluminum Wires - Burnt Recepticles, and Photographs!

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There was a time when I was great with electrical. I am still great with photography.

Not long ago, I notice a burnt out electical outlet at a friend's home, and offered to fix it for him.

I removed the cover plate, and found most of the insulation burnt off of the aluminum wires. The duplex recepticle was charcoal, and crumbled into 2 pieces. The wires attached to the side of the recepticle were still screwed on tight, but hanging free from the recepticle itself. It feed two other outlets, one of which was powering a lamp, the other a large running fan to cool the room. I didn't bring my camera that day...

I did what I learned over a decade ago, cleaned and pigtailed copper wires onto the aluminum wires, put in a new aluminum approved recepticle and wallplate. It is working fine, and I know that it is now much safer now, than before I worked on it.

The I checked the lastest on the internet, and find, dag nabbit, pigtailing aluminum to copper wires is no longer considered safe. You have to use this special purple wire nuts with anti-oxident that cost about $2.50 each.

No, wait, that is no longer considered safe either. An "certified" electrician who passed a class in how to use a Tyco crimping tool now has to do it. How I regret selling my Tyco stock!

No, wait, now Alcop has some screw down connectors you can use, for about $4.00 each.

There is a thing called care, and I know, that the connections I did, are far safer than before I did them. But I am going to make sure he has an electrician fix them correctly, umm, if anyone really knows what is correct for aluminum wires this year.

I then looked for a GFCI recepticle rated for aluminum wires, to protect his bathrooms, and low and behold, nobody makes a GFCI for aluminum wires.

My next project, was my aluminum wired clubhouse. I noticed that the light switches in the greatroom, which control well over 1,000 watts of light each, has a wallplate that gets noticably warm to the touch when the lights have been own for about 30 minutes... Hmmm, a warning sign.

This time, I have my newest camera and decades of photography skills.

It was not nearly as bad as the burnt out outlet, but there were several interesting stupid things, improper, and just plain wrong things done in that box.

I have, some really really fantastic digital photographs of simple stupid things wanna-be electricians do, which I will gladly provide for electrical books as long as I get credit for the photographs.

I can't wait to turn my camera to the other outlets, like that non-GFCI outlet and light switch that doesn't turn anything on or off switch just above the kitchen sink...

Happy Fathers Day Dad!
 

StreamlineGT

Senior Member
***THREAD JACK***

How's this, this is where I went today.....

4812_1086270156510_1219080789_30249.jpg
 

StreamlineGT

Senior Member
It looks like the feeders have melted away?:confused:

The main breaker caught fire after years and years of getting dripped on, or so I was told by the restoration company. The bottom half of the service was removed, what was left of it. I can't imagine very much. It took half the house with it. The finished basement, dining room, kitchen, foyer, and two upstairs bedroom are bring gutted, due to the fire travelling up an interior wall. About 2000 sq ft in all.
 

PetrosA

Senior Member
When you post a thread or response, in the "Additional Options" block below the one where you input text there is a "Manage Attachments" button which will open a new window that allows you to upload files from your computer to the forum. It seems you can ignore the sizing guidelines somewhat, but you shouldn't need to send anything larger than 1200 pixels on the longest side.
 

LarryFine

Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
Location
Henrico County, VA
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
Anthony, welcome to the forum! :smile:

My next project, was my aluminum wired clubhouse. I noticed that the light switches in the greatroom, which control well over 1,000 watts of light each, has a wallplate that gets noticably warm to the touch when the lights have been own for about 30 minutes... Hmmm, a warning sign.
I suggest, as a temporary improvement, that you tighten the terminal screws on the switches. The ovalled (which is why it's loose) conductor will make better-than-when-new contact.
 

LarryFine

Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
Location
Henrico County, VA
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
I can't wait to turn my camera to the other outlets, like that non-GFCI outlet and light switch that doesn't turn anything on or off switch just above the kitchen sink...
Is there a big round hunk of metal hanging below the sink? :grin:
 
Another Attempt to Post a Picture!

Another Attempt to Post a Picture!

This is the first thing that I saw after removing the wallplate which was getting hot.

It is not dramatic, but is about 2MB of a JPG. I will only try one picture per message...

Two 15 amp rated Leviton CO-ALR light switches controlling 2 sets of lights.

One 20 amp circuit breaker protecting both light switches.

One set of lights is 6 150 watt floodlamps (900 watts).

The 2nd set of lights is also 6 150 watt floodlamps, plus an additional 480 watts of hanging lights.

2,280 watts total, 20.72 amps at 110 VAC. Hmm.... Maybe I should use 115VAC to calculate the amps...

The first thing I noticed was about 4 10 gauge aluminum neutral wires with the burnt brown insulation, all stuffed into one wire nut.

Then 4 10 gauge aluminum ground wires all stuffed into one wire nut.

Then 3 10 aluminum and 1 12 gauge copper hot wire all stuffed into 1 wire nut.

The ground is not connected to the left switch.
There is no place to connect a ground to the right switch.
The bare copper ground wire in the back, is not connected at all.

Aha, I see the problem with uploading my 4MB images, they can't be bigger than 2.4KB... Okay, so it loses some quality....
 
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This is 3, not 4 10 gauge aluminum hot wires I found in one wire nut.

It looks like 4, because one wire was stripped in the middle, and bent so it looked like there were 4 wires in it.

Maybe someone bent a rule about no more than 3 wires in one wire nut here....
 
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