How much does it cost to have a house w/ aluminum wiring rewired with copper?

Question

I am planning on calling an electrician before we move in. I was just wondering about some ballpark estimates to rewire a home with aluminum wiring (appx. 1900 sq feet).

Answer 1

I have been living in a house with aluminum wiring now for over 30 years, and I have had problems.

The problems dealt primarily with electricians that did not know how to install aluminum. Learning that is the most important thing.

Aluminum wiring is not dangerous if installed correctly. Few electricians know how to work with it today.

I would leave it there and check it out.

The mess that you will encounter changing it, if you cannot fix the mess yourself, will be astronomical in cost to do.

Before you do anything, kill the circuit you are working on by going to the fuse box or breaker box.

Once the circuit is dead, remove each wall switch and each wall socket and look on the pieces for a AL/CU, or ALCU designation. That means that that is made for aluminum wiring. Remove the wires, remembering that aluminum wiring is more brittle than copper, and put some anti-oxidant in the area where you screw the wires back in. The anti-oxidant comes in several brands, but probably the most recognizable is NOALOX. You can get those at an electrical supply house, don't even think of going to a hardware store or a Home Depot or Lowes, they know nothing.

If the receptical does not have a ALCU designation, you will probably have to go to the electrical supply and buy enough to do your house. They will probably have to be ordered, so this may take some time.

Eventually do that to every electrical connection in the house. I even ordered two dozen more than I needed in case a receptacle went out, just to have around the house in emergency.

Aluminum wires are one gauge thicker than their copper counter parts, so if a circuit is to have 14 gauge wires, you have to use 12, if it is a 12 gauge circuit, you have to have 10 gauge wire if you are using aluminum.

Never make a direct connection with aluminum wires and copper wires. That will cause a reaction and the connection will fail. If you have to do that, you will have to use something called a "split bolt" and make the connection like that.

Noalox is nothing more than a vaseline type of grease that is impregnated with filings of aluminum. There are better choices out there, ask your electrical supply house.

What to watch for:

All electrical receptacles and switches will eventually fail. That is why I recommend buying plenty of spares and always keeping anti-oxidant on hand.

If there is a reaction with the aluminum connection to any one of the circuits, you will notice lights flickering occasionally, little darts across your TV screen, especially in the first 6 or 8 channel categories. At that point, you go into action. Feel every switch plate and wall plug plate and check for heat. If you do not find it there, open up the door to the breaker box and feel the breakers (as long as you don't touch the wires, nothing will happen). If you locate a circuit that is giving you problems, shut it off immediately and check all the connections on that circuit. The repairs are generally easily made, but remember the anti-oxidant.

I have had one problem, and that was caused by the man who installed my breaker box. The main electricity coming into your house is on aluminum lines. The power companies use aluminum lines. The man who installed the breaker box did not use any anti-oxidant. I called an electrician on a sunday and he was there in ten minutes. He removed the meter, killing all power to the house, and then repaired the problem in the breaker box. My breaker box was so hot that it melted all the plastics in it. How did I discover the problem - the little darts static) going across the screen on the TV.

What you will run into if you switch to copper. Since the wires are in the walls, ceilings, and basement, they will have to rip out a lot of sheet rock to install the copper. That means that after the electrician has completed his job, you will have to replace the sheetrock, probably have to rip off the door trim and replace that, and clean that crap up. You will have to put down new floor molding and a lot of other dirty jobs.

That means that you will have to do that in every room and on every wall in your house that has electrical wires going through it. That means that you will have to repaint or repaper every wall.

I can do that, but I would charge you $30 per hour and the job may take two weeks or more. You do the math.

Check your wiring, as I stated above, about once every two years. 99.9% will need no work, just look at the connection and tighten screws.

What does aluminum do that people think it is dangerous?

Without proper installation, without using an anti-oxidant, you will remove a wall socket and find, perhaps, that the screws holding the wires secure are loose. When aluminum wiring is under pressure, that is that there is a heavy load going through it, it tends to want to move. That movement will unscrew screws. The anti-oxidant will stop that by securing the connection.

I would suggest that you call an electrician that is a member of the IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers - a union with a phenomenal training program to maintain certification) and have one of their certified electricians come to the house and check it out before you move in.

As for the respondent whose mother has been told to rewire with copper, I would wait until they cut the insurance and then sue their pants off. The house was built under the codes of the day and they are grandfathered in. However it would be wise for his mother to call a certified electrician to check it out. The main problem is that most people who need a switch replaced, go to Ace Hardware and get a new switch, not noticing if it is ALCU rated and install it. That circuit will fail.

You cannot buy Ground Fault Detectors for baths and kitchens that are rated for aluminum. But you can find ground fault breakers to put into your box which will do the same thing.

You should call a certified electrician, licensed, to check the house out if you can't do this work yourself and get a letter fromhim stating that your circuits are all in good repair. He will probably charge you a fee (200-300$$ or so) plus any repairs that he has to make, but that is not the same as paying thousands upon thousands of bucks for a replacement. The electrician is not going to repair the sheet rock damage!

Answer 2

Sarah: I can't answer your question, but I plead with you and your husband to not purchase a house with that wiring if you value your life. In my locale there have been so many homes that have burned down causing loss of life as a result of aluminum wiring. Unless you COMPLETELY exchange all the wiring for copper wire, you will never FEEL SAFE. Rely on history. It is far greater to be SAFE NOW than to be SORRY LATER. NO house is worth that RISK!

Answer 3

You may want to check with your insurance company, because my mom's house was wired up with alumimum wiring and now the house is about 30 years old and the insurance company is threating to drop the insurance if we don't replace the wiring with copper because alumimum will not take heavy electrical loads and when they do they heat up quickly and start fires. If you haven't bought the house i would put a clause into the buyer's agreement or ask for some money off because alumimum wires are infeior and garbage. For my mom's house it ended up costing us about 4000 bucks for the electrictian to pull out all the wires, we did the demo ourselves which was to pull all the drywall off and clean-up leaving all interior walls bare. and the rest of the 4000 was for the drywallers to come in and put new drywall up. But since our house also had old pipes too so we decieded to replace those too as well. What you may be looking at is a money pit, after all wiring, plumbing and other repairs were done, it ended up costing us about 12 grand to do all the work and half of it was because we did the work ourselves

Answer 4

Several thousand dollars. Copper is near all-time highs right now, and labour is going to run you a lot as well. I would seriously consider buying another house if the aluminum wiring causes you that much concern.

Answer 5

lol alot.