Arc Fault

[success4you]

I have just received a call from one of my regular customers telling me of a problem they are having with one of their complexes. The entire complex is wired in aluminum romex. Last night there was some over heating in the wall that seemed to be disipating from an outlet box with a bad splice. We are going to go in and check all the outlet boxes for any other bad splices or deterioration. We will also check the main lug connections in the sub panel and at the main breaker. They have already spliced copper on to the ends of the aluminum conductors so that they have copper going into all switches and outlets. I wish they made an arc fault receptacle I could put at the begining of the circuit. I could change out the sub panels and add arc fault breakers but we are dealing with three wire circuits. Any body have any Ideas or suggestions. Thanks

 

[petersonra]

Re: Arc Fault

I think there was a thread on here about the pigtail method of dealing with AL romex, and how it was not especially useful as a safety measure. You might want to do a search on it.

[ March 09, 2005, 05:04 PM: Message edited by: petersonra ]

 

[kilewatt2002]

Re: Arc Fault

Oh boy aluminum are we having fun yet?
In my personal opinion that junk needs to be scrapped.
I spent 2 long years in Arizona where I had to deal with alum. wiring. Nothing that wa on the market did anything to improve the situation other than replace the system with copper. Good luck.
If things got that hot where you can see things, whats going on where you cannt see
Remember, the last electrician to have his hands in the box is at fault for anything that happens

 

[charlie tuna]

Re: Arc Fault

it's not the end of the world---ya, aluminum was a mistake, but we have to maintain it as tradesmen! i know of large housing developments that are wired with it, and they have had their share of problems. most of what i have seen is where this wiring carrys alot of load ---appliance circuits--ac wiring!!! these are expensive homes! what was saved? but we have to live with it. one big problem was that they back wired the kitchen receptacles -- the load and force of the pressure blades onto the soft aluminum wire cut it free of the receptacles. also there were plenty of calls due to the terminations on the circuit breakers!!!