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History of Buchanan wire nuts for AL wiring

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electricguy61

electricguy61

Senior Member
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Remotely running business in Bay Area, CA from Med
I found a 2011 thread on this issue, but thought I would see what practical experience has been.

I did an inspection yesterday on a home built in 1973 that was wired with #12 & #10 aluminum romex. Connections were made with Buchanan wire nuts. My random sampling found no problems with the connections. If memory serves me correctly, Buchanan's were rated for aluminum wiring, but of course everyone has de-listed their product for AL connections.

Anyone observed problems with Buchanan's and aluminum wire? We all know there are no good alternatives to re-working the connections (KingCon purples are just too big for most boxes, purple Ideals catch fire)

The condo also had an FPE sub-panel that had water damage. It will definitely need to be replaced.

Thanks
 
petersonra

petersonra

Senior Member
Location
Northern illinois
Occupation
engineer
electricguy61 said:
I found a 2011 thread on this issue, but thought I would see what practical experience has been.

I did an inspection yesterday on a home built in 1973 that was wired with #12 & #10 aluminum romex. Connections were made with Buchanan wire nuts. My random sampling found no problems with the connections. If memory serves me correctly, Buchanan's were rated for aluminum wiring, but of course everyone has de-listed their product for AL connections.

Anyone observed problems with Buchanan's and aluminum wire? We all know there are no good alternatives to re-working the connections (KingCon purples are just too big for most boxes, purple Ideals catch fire)

The condo also had an FPE sub-panel that had water damage. It will definitely need to be replaced.

Thanks
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I would say this. The vast majority of Al Romex installs never had any problems at all. Chances are if it has not had a problem to this point it won't.

However, I am a little worried about the "random sampling" you did. If you untwisted them to inspect them you might well have introduced a problem where there was no previous problem.

I don't think it matters much what brand the water damaged panel is. If it was actually damaged it probably should be replaced.
 
U

user 100

Senior Member
Location
texas
electricguy61 said:
I found a 2011 thread on this issue, but thought I would see what practical experience has been.

I did an inspection yesterday on a home built in 1973 that was wired with #12 & #10 aluminum romex. Connections were made with Buchanan wire nuts. My random sampling found no problems with the connections. If memory serves me correctly, Buchanan's were rated for aluminum wiring, but of course everyone has de-listed their product for AL connections.

Anyone observed problems with Buchanan's and aluminum wire? We all know there are no good alternatives to re-working the connections (KingCon purples are just too big for most boxes, purple Ideals catch fire)

The condo also had an FPE sub-panel that had water damage. It will definitely need to be replaced.

Thanks
Click to expand...

I believe that several brands were listed, but don't know about buchanan (skotchlok's were for sure in the '70s and seemed to perform better than other twist on connectors for this particular application) and yes, sometime in the late '80s (?), the listings for all of them were removed or something, and none of those standard wirenuts are presently listed for AL. As for the apparently healthy al/cu joints, some electricians back in the day just seemed to have a knack for knowing how to handle al nm and a lot of guys were/are well versed in the pretwist/penetrox/then cap method, but the problems associated with that repair (especially if the penetrox was omitted) are well known and its considered a risk.

Were the samples only taken from circuits that are lightly loaded?



Imo, if you can give these fine folks a rewire, or at least box/device replacement w/alumiconns that would be great, but be prepared to hear that "if it isn't broke, why fix it?" And in reality over 4 decades for those trouble free joints isn't bad. And of course the need to can the water damaged FPE sp is a foregone conclusion.
 
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