COLBY CRANE

Eastbourne Electricians, Fuses in the Home, Is It Time to Upgrade the Fuse Box in Your House?Rehabbing a home produced between 1965 - 1973? Chances are the house has light weight aluminum wiring. What special precautions need to be taken when working with aluminum wiring?

My best advice is always to have all the wiring evaluated by the licensed electrician for protection, preferable one that knows aluminum and if you can keep from changing out receptacles, switches and lighting that has to be best, just don't mess with it. I know if you're doing a complete rehab, you will want to swap out lights, old together with dirty light switches and receptacles with many clothes of paint, but when you can clean them up, you will be better off.

Other options are:

1. Rewire the house with copper wiring. This isn't much of a choice since a typical house could cost ten thousand dollars or more.

2. You may connect copper to the average outlet or switch and that come with it to the aluminum wire in the wall. You would need to hire an electrician to make the connections using that approved method called Copalum, which utilized an exceptional connector and a high pressure crimping tool to make the bond. This would be very expensive if you even found an electrician that still has the equipment. I have seen around $10. 00 : $15. 00 per link.

3. Switch out switches and receptacles with special aluminum rated ones. You can get them at electrical supply companies, online or I have found them at Lowes. Help they are more costly. You will pay about fifty cents to get a normal copper rated walls outlet, but an aluminum rated one will cost about $3. 75 in addition to a wall switch is about $4. 50. Needless to say, this will add up costs to your bottom line, but still cheaper.

several. There is a connector sold that has had good testing outcomes named Alumiconn . These are typically still about $3. 00, so you might as well spend another dollar and buy the aluminum rated socket or switch. I would use these for connecting light fixtures or other connections.

The many other precaution to take is to apply an anti-oxidant paste on all connections. This is a thick grey paste that keeps the wire from oxidation and help alleviate problems with resistive heat.

The important thing to remember when dealing with aluminum wiring is it's not the wiring itself that is makes it dangerous, it's the wiring connections. I am reminded of last year when I inspected a house that was featured on the TV show "Flip this House" along with the guys that did that rehab, did their own wiring and just used a normal twist connectors to join wires together. A licensed electrician had to be called in to rewire the complete home and the asking price of the home had to remain lowered to allow with regard to these repairs. They didn't want to enjoy the extra money over the proper outlets and switches and it wound up costing them more in the long run. You want to produced a quality and safe home not put others at chance, so please be careful when coping with homes with aluminum wiring.