Do you use copper SEC or Aluminum when you do a service change?

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jxofaltrds said:
I'll bite. Why is this hack work? I know that you wish to inform us.
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Because lots of meter pan lugs burning up from poor installation techniques

Also main breakers having problems with corrosion.

Just last year I asked a POCO guy with (35) years experience on the job what he has seen doing service work.

He was quite clear.. copper services always last and AL services keep having problems.
 
BLACK4TRUCK said:
Because lots of meter pan lugs burning up from poor installation techniques

Also main breakers having problems with corrosion.

Just last year I asked a POCO guy with (35) years experience on the job what he has seen doing service work.

He was quite clear.. copper services always last and AL services keep having problems.
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Anything installed improperly will have problems.
 
BLACK4TRUCK said:
I agree, but it seems they are more severe when aluminum wire is involved

Almost all overhead residential services done here are copper
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Don't forget the scarlet letter, when marketing a home... "Aluminum wiring found in service" doesn't sound as good as "no aluminum wiring was discovered."
 
I have been to literally hundreds of homes for calls of partial power, and very very rarely is the cause a detriorated copper conductor or connection. The overwhelming majority is due to a failing aluminum termination in the meter socket, at the main breaker or a deteriorated neutral conductor in the SE cable. I have personally seen home appliances catch on fire when the service neutral opened because of a deteriorated aluminum neutral (there was no grounding system in the home). A modern grounding system would help prevent that from happening, but then you would have a large amount of current on the grounding electrode conductors. I have never seen a coppper conductor deteriorate to the point of completely opening the circuit.

I use copper SE cable for almost every service upgrade that we do. Another good point about copper is that when upgrading a service, you can usually use the same hole in the wall without having to drill it out larger...an important aspect when the foundation wall could be 18" thick stone.
 
romexking said:
I have been to literally hundreds of homes for calls of partial power, and very very rarely is the cause a detriorated copper conductor or connection. The overwhelming majority is due to a failing aluminum termination in the meter socket, at the main breaker or a deteriorated neutral conductor in the SE cable. I have personally seen home appliances catch on fire when the service neutral opened because of a deteriorated aluminum neutral (there was no grounding system in the home). A modern grounding system would help prevent that from happening, but then you would have a large amount of current on the grounding electrode conductors. I have never seen a coppper conductor deteriorate to the point of completely opening the circuit.

I use copper SE cable for almost every service upgrade that we do. Another good point about copper is that when upgrading a service, you can usually use the same hole in the wall without having to drill it out larger...an important aspect when the foundation wall could be 18" thick stone.
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I have been saying this all along and most do not agree with it.. good to see someone else has found these problems ;)
 
You know, the brakes on my vehicles do not last forever, yet they too are something that can cause loss of life and property when they fail. Same goes for the tires. The auto makers do not attempt to make them of such value that they are still in great shape 50 or 60 years down the road. Nope, they make them with a lifespan of a few years at best, and it is up to the buyer of the vehicle to maintain the vehicle. Why are we treated different, and why must we adhere to the idea that the service feeders need to last 6 decades or more? I like the fact that the alum ser cable installed in the early 70's goes bad once in a while. That gets me more work.
 
The reason for most termination failures of aluminum conductors is usually over or under torquing the terminal.

The reason for corrosion at a termination is usually not taking care to prevent moisture from following the conductor from either overhead termination allowing moisture inside conductor insulation or condensation from inside raceway following conductor on outside of insulation and accumulating at the terminal.

The same things happen with copper conductors have seen breakers fail from water entering through the copper conductors that originated outdoors and causing deterioration inside breaker.
 
First off I would say any use of SE cable at all is hack, so if your gonna use SE cable it might as well be AL. Second I have never been to a call where Service entrance conductors were burning up up with copper, all the ones I have seen are aluminum.

I don't even know where you can get SE get cable down here, I'm amazed people still use that stuff, are you paying tribute to forefathers etc... ?
 
LawnGuyLandSparky said:
Well, it's better than cable, weatherhead, emt sleeve, strap strap strap, duxseal...
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The use of duxseal should of been banned years ago.

You could use real duck poop and keep more water from entering the service.

But is does provide us with MANY new service changes :D

I have been using 100% rubber silicone for many years and never had a call back.

Even Latex caulk is garbage and should never be used.
 
LawnGuyLandSparky said:
Don't forget the scarlet letter, when marketing a home... "Aluminum wiring found in service" doesn't sound as good as "no aluminum wiring was discovered."
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Thankfully HI's around here are smart enough to know the difference between safe AL service cables and problematic branch circuit sized AL. :cool:
 
BLACK4TRUCK said:
I have been saying this all along and most do not agree with it.. good to see someone else has found these problems ;)
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I don't agree with broad generalizations that are mostly to do with poor installation practice and not the product itself. I can't help it if an electrician is incapable of torquing connections properly and doesn't seal up the service cable where it needs to be sealed. Just because other people don't do it correctly doesn't mean I can't do it correctly. I'm not going to condemn a wiring method because of man's stupidity.
 
For all the naysayers saying aluminum services corrode/fail more regularly, do you have anything to show what percentage of services are cu/al and the failure rate for each? How many were torqued properly? I suren't haven't seen any hard numbers yet....

Just seems like a whole lotta speculation with no basis to me.

If guys want to install cu only services just because they've seen(or heard from a lineman) a few aluminum services fail based on unknown installation practices that's fine by me. Just don't complain when you get underbid.;)
 
While I have't kept the statistics to accurately determine the ratio of failed aluminum to failed copper services, I do know that it is more prevalent in the aluminum wired services. It may be because of the improper torqueing (do you actually torque all of your connections?), or it may be from improper sealing of the cable/connector, but for whatever reason, it seems to fail more often.

I don't condemn any contractor that intalls AL SE cable, that is your own choice, and it is code compliant. I also don't complain about being underbid. Sure, we lose a few just because someone else doesn't have the same costs as we do, but on the average service, the cost of copper SE cable increases our costs by about $225 over AL SE. If I lose a service change over $225, then it's my own fault for not having convinced the homeowner that I would be the better choice.
 
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