Aluminum wire question

[Andy in Fink]

I have a bunch of aluminum wire, 12-2 w g, that was being thrown out following a rewiring job.

Now, while I would never wire a place with aluminum myself, since I have a pile of it, it might be useful sometime or other.....

The problem with aluminum is in the connections, which eventually go bad, and generate heat.

My question , tho, is this:

If aluminum wiring is pigtailed with copper wiring using normal wirenuts, does the wirenut connection degrade ?

Please don't answer unless you really have first hand knowledge of this. Thanks..

Andy

[Nate B]

"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

[AJ the NEC Guru]

[TURTLE]

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

[Chris Lewis]

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.

[Richard J Kinch]

Yep, sooner or later. Forget the greasy wirenuts.

[Joseph Meehan]

It makes good speaker or doorbell wire.

[SQLit]

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

1970's and was mostly AL wiring. If you use the proper devices pigtails are not needed. The proper devices are pretty hard to find now days as everyone is back using copper. I know of NO national standard that says you can not use AL. Just that it must be terminated properly. You realize that 12-2 is only good for 15 amps.

[Joseph Meehan]

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

[mike92105]

[Stormin Mormon]

Ah, but the insurance payout.....

[scott]

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...