Aluminum wiring - Home inspector

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drcampbell said:
I doubt very much that any additional flattening occurs after the initial installation.
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Why else would the screws loosen? Either they're turning or the aluminum is becoming thinner. I've seen screws that took as much as a full turn to be re-tightened, but only on aluminum wire.
 
Last I checked, there is no such thing as a tamper resistant CO/ALR receptacle. So, we can't legally change them all out per the requirements of the 406.4(D)5.

I don't use the purple wirenuts, have found too many of them melted. I use rewiring or AlumiConns. Yes, they are both expensive but there aren't too many other options.
 
I always figure that if you haven't had a problem with it, don't touch it. The more you mess with that old aluminum the more chance you have of making it worse. I just did a quick check but I could find a CU/AL TR receptacle either.
 
I've done one house using Alumiconns and that was enough. I will never accept another remediation job ever again.
- The old boxes are too small to fit three Alumiconns.
- I had to crawl through the attic to find every hidden j-box, some of which were not very accessible.
- I found many wiring errors unrelated to the remediation and had to fix them all including lots of flying splices.

I keep a few Alumiconns in my truck in case I find AL wire when doing an install, but that's all I will use them for.
 
By Alumiconn, you're referring to the three-terminal bus bar with the purple plastic snap-shut case, right?

I use them on my bike for power wire connections. Perfect self-insulating splices and contain a compound.
 
LarryFine said:
By Alumiconn, you're referring to the three-terminal bus bar with the purple plastic snap-shut case, right?

I use them on my bike for power wire connections. Perfect self-insulating splices and contain a compound.
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Yes, made by King Innovations: https://www.kinginnovation.com/products/20/3-port-alumiconn

We have installed thousands of them on probably 40-50 houses and have never had one fail. We install with torque screwdrivers per manufacturers instructions. It's good filler work for the winter months when there's nothing else going on...

My first choice will always be rewiring, but most the aluminum houses around here are wired with AL NM cable so rewiring gets messy. We've done several that were wired with FMC and AL THW so we were able to pull out the AL while pulling in CU. That gets spendy as we need to basically bring the house up to current code (AFCI protection, TR recepts, new switches) as we are totally rewiring it. But, it's a better product in the end. We don't need to do this with the AlumiConns as we aren't replacing anything other than the existing wirenuts.
 
LarryFine said:
Why else would the screws loosen? Either they're turning or the aluminum is becoming thinner. I've seen screws that took as much as a full turn to be re-tightened, but only on aluminum wire.
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I dunno, I've gone into fire alarm panels and done a quarter to half a turn on terminal blocks with the usual solid copper 18-12 gauge wire.
 
ptonsparky said:
And both of you were torqueing to the specs?
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No, I didn't use a torque screw driver. On the other hand, I don't wrench it down like, say, my ex-boss, who could probably bend 1" RMC with his bare hands to close tolerance. I'd go to a light stop, and then an eighth to a quarter turn more.

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I'd find loose screws in panels that I had tightened down 2 or 3 years before.
 
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