Aluminum wiring: certify it or rewire it

How to tell if you have it

Between 1965 and 1975, copper was expensive and aluminum was an accepted material for home wiring. Thousands of Québec homes from that period have it, and most of their owners find out the day an insurer or an inspector asks the question.

It isn’t a disaster. But it gets fixed, and it’s better to do it before you’re forced to.

The year of construction is the first clue. A house built between the mid-1960s and the mid-1970s is a candidate. Before or after, much less likely.

The cable sheath is normally printed. In an unfinished basement or at the panel, you can often read the type of conductor on it. An aluminum wire is also visibly silvery grey rather than copper-coloured, where the bare metal shows.

The panel is the easiest place to look, but it’s not yours to open. An electrician does it in a few minutes during a visit.

The real problem: the connections

Aluminum wire conducts electricity very well. It isn’t the problem; the problem is what happens at its ends.

• It moves more than copper. It expands as it heats and contracts as it cools, more than copper does. Over years of daily cycles, a screw that was perfectly tight at installation ends up loosening.
• It oxidizes differently. The oxide layer that forms on its surface conducts less well than the metal beneath, which increases resistance at the contact point.

A connection that resists heats up. And here is the point to understand: it heats up without tripping the breaker. The breaker watches the current flowing in the circuit, not the temperature of a screw in a box behind a wall.

The signs that should make you call: a warm switch or outlet plate, discolouration or a smell around an outlet, a crackling sound, or a light that flickers on one particular circuit.

Treat or rewire

In most homes, treating the connections is enough. It’s methodical work: we open every box, every outlet, every switch, inspect, and redo the junction using a recognized method with hardware designed for aluminum.

What matters here is that the work is done by a master electrician and documented, because that document is what has value afterwards, with an insurer as much as with a buyer.

What insurers ask for

It’s often what triggers the call: an insurer asks the question when you take out or renew a policy, and the owner discovers they have aluminum.

Each insurer applies its own rules. Some ask for confirmation that a master electrician has inspected and treated the connections. Others require more. Others don’t ask at all. We can’t tell you what yours will decide, and be wary of anyone who claims they can.

What we do control: giving you a precise work report describing what was inspected, what was treated and what remains. It’s the document your insurer will want to see, and it’s also the one that will reassure the next buyer’s inspector.

What changes the bill

Treating the connections is billed mainly by the number of points: every outlet, every switch, every junction box is a place to open, inspect and redo.

What moves the price:

• The number of points. A 1970 bungalow and a two-storey house with a finished basement don’t compare.
• Access. Heavy furniture in front of the outlets, boxes buried behind a finish: you pay for it in time.
• What we find when we open. Junctions already botched, overloaded boxes, a circuit modified without a permit.
• The condition of the panel. A house from that period often also has a panel at the end of its life: the two jobs go well together.

We do the survey before pricing, and the price is written in the quote before anything starts.

Frequently asked questions