Fire Hazards: Aluminum Wiring And Your Electricity
By Jason Channell, The House Sleuth
(Diadem Property Inspections - Serving Southeast Michigan)
Fire Hazards: Aluminum Wiring And Your Electricity Many houses built from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s used aluminum wiring as a substitute for copper wiring. Since the price of copper was rising dramatically, this made financial sense. And after all, a metal is a metal, right? If aluminum ladders under a power cable can conduct electricity, shouldn't aluminum wires be able to carry electricity throughout a house? Well, it isn't that simple, and after about ten years of this practice, we discovered aluminum wire wasn't a terrific replacement for copper. Why doesn't it work as well? Properly maintained aluminum wiring is acceptable, but aluminum's physical qualities make it become defective faster than copper... that means connections in outlets, switches and light fixtures become incr...
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