davefoc
Member
- Location
- Orange County, California
There is an open circuit in a junction box where the copper wire from our panel connects to the aluminum wire to our air conditioner.
The power for our air conditioner leaves our circuit breaker panel through a dual 50 Amp breaker. I believe the wire is stranded #6 AWG copper. It is connected in a junction box to what I believe is #4 AWG stranded aluminum wire. (I am going to measure the wire diameters tomorrow to verify the gauges). The house was built in 1976 and I believe the wiring dates from then. I will post a picture of the box and the wires tomorrow
One of the wire nuts disintegrated to the point that I couldn't find any remnants of it. There was a lot of soot on and around the box which made it look like it was destroyed in a high heat event. The wire nut that is still in place on the other hot supply wire looks like it was some kind of specialized connection device (it looks sort of like a wire nut but it appears to have been crimped) that was used because of the connection was an aluminum to copper connection. I think there was a wire nut on the ground wire but I don't remember the details of it right now.
Assuming my estimate of the wire gauges is correct I plan to use three Polaris 4-14 gauge tap connectors (IT4) (https://images.homedepot-static.com/catalog/pdfImages/ff/ff091f1c-8580-4bcd-a922-6374ecac582e.pdf) to make the connections. I saw a thread on a similar issue and split bolts were suggested. The Polaris looks to be much simpler to me and I don't mind the extra cost. How important is a torque wrench to get the screw torque correct?
If there is not room in the 4 inch junction box I plan to use a junction box extender.
The original installer stripped the wires back too far and there was about 1.5 inches of exposed copper wire on each wire in the box. He seems to have carefully assembled the wire in the box so that they didn't short (perhaps there was enough heat in the box that the insulation shrank back from the connection?). I plan to fix this by covering the exposed wire with heat shrink tubing. I plan to use the grey goop on the aluminum wires recommended for aluminum connections.
As an aside, the junction box seems to have done its job. It looks like the event that destroyed the connector might have produced enough heat to have started a fire if the connection had not been contained within a junction box.
Thank you for any comments and help. It will be greatly appreciated.
-Dave
The power for our air conditioner leaves our circuit breaker panel through a dual 50 Amp breaker. I believe the wire is stranded #6 AWG copper. It is connected in a junction box to what I believe is #4 AWG stranded aluminum wire. (I am going to measure the wire diameters tomorrow to verify the gauges). The house was built in 1976 and I believe the wiring dates from then. I will post a picture of the box and the wires tomorrow
One of the wire nuts disintegrated to the point that I couldn't find any remnants of it. There was a lot of soot on and around the box which made it look like it was destroyed in a high heat event. The wire nut that is still in place on the other hot supply wire looks like it was some kind of specialized connection device (it looks sort of like a wire nut but it appears to have been crimped) that was used because of the connection was an aluminum to copper connection. I think there was a wire nut on the ground wire but I don't remember the details of it right now.
Assuming my estimate of the wire gauges is correct I plan to use three Polaris 4-14 gauge tap connectors (IT4) (https://images.homedepot-static.com/catalog/pdfImages/ff/ff091f1c-8580-4bcd-a922-6374ecac582e.pdf) to make the connections. I saw a thread on a similar issue and split bolts were suggested. The Polaris looks to be much simpler to me and I don't mind the extra cost. How important is a torque wrench to get the screw torque correct?
If there is not room in the 4 inch junction box I plan to use a junction box extender.
The original installer stripped the wires back too far and there was about 1.5 inches of exposed copper wire on each wire in the box. He seems to have carefully assembled the wire in the box so that they didn't short (perhaps there was enough heat in the box that the insulation shrank back from the connection?). I plan to fix this by covering the exposed wire with heat shrink tubing. I plan to use the grey goop on the aluminum wires recommended for aluminum connections.
As an aside, the junction box seems to have done its job. It looks like the event that destroyed the connector might have produced enough heat to have started a fire if the connection had not been contained within a junction box.
Thank you for any comments and help. It will be greatly appreciated.
-Dave
