Aluminum wire question

"Andy in Fink"

People usually use an anticorrosive grease in the wire nut, made special for the purpose, sold near your other electrical supplies. There is also a special wirenut people often use that will block sparks. I'm not 100% sure if and where these pecularly expensive nuts are required. I have several in my main panel, but I used regular wire nuts + grease for all of the pigtails throughout the house.

All in all, reusing your Al wire is a waste of time - and, frankly, illegal. I just bought 250ft of 12-2 copper from Home Depot for 36 bucks. Pretty no brainier to just toss the old stuff, IMO.

- Nate

This is Turtle.

You can do anything like this but putting Al. and Cu. wire together in one wire nut is just not nice at all and some parts of the country illegal. It's just trouble a waiting.

If this Al. wire was so good and long lasting. Why are they taking it out of your house ?

TURTLE

According to Andy in Fink :

Probably.

"Normal wirenuts" used to connect copper to Al will usually cause problems. As will Al connections to anything else that isn't rated Al/Cu or CO/ALR (more modern version).

I've seen enough burnouts of those...

IIRC, US code requires special crimp connectors for copper pigtailing.

Canadian codes still permit CO/ALR rated wirenuts.

Yep, sooner or later. Forget the greasy wirenuts.

It makes good speaker or doorbell wire.

Utilities have been using AL for years. If the connections are done right there is not a problem. My last house was

You can use it for some circuits, but I don't believe it is allowed for any new 15 or 20 amp 120V circuits.

Ah, but the insurance payout.....

May I suggest recycling it? Maybe get a few bucks for the aluminum content.

I know they use Aluminum wire for 220 V circuits, usually with low number guages (say 8 gauge). They also use it for utility wiring, though it generally doesn't set telephone poles on fire...