Electrical Panels Or Sub Panels Upgrade?
I have old house and all electrical wires are aluminium.
The electrical panels or sub panels i have to small if i want to upgrade electrical panel with big size to fit more circuit breakers for doing kitchen remodel do i have to replace all aluminium wires for all house or just the area need to do remodeling and leave old aluminium wires already used in rooms and bath rooms,hallway,garage out side without replace
Aluminum had a very bad reputation because it was the cause of fires due to improper installation. If you have a qualified electrician and you get panels rated for aluminum and properly installed you should not have a problem. Some times home owners replace devices that are not designed for aluminum wire.Over the years with different homeowners who don’t know what they are doing. then you run into problems you should have the house looked at . But it is possible if you have a good electrician.
Check with your local code I would replace the wiring due to the risk of fire
Absolutely replace all the aluminum wires with copper. Al tends to corrode over years and the corrosion acts like a resistor, which can get hot enough to start a fire.
Have you checked the building code, regarding such? That should tell you what is required, in your area.
As an electrical engineer, I’ve had a lot of experience with both Aluminium and Copper in-door installations.
To answer your question, you can easily up-size your panel-boards. All you have to do is make some disconnections from the bus-bar, maybe smash up the wall surrounding the panel to make space for a larger one, and then fit them all back in. A regular electrician can do the job easily.
However, my advice to you is to take this opportunity to remove all Aluminium wires in your house and rewire it all with Copper (such as NYA’s or THHN’s). This is for two reasons:
1). If its an old house, then the wires would have served their lifetime by now, and the insulation might have become dry and brittle. This could lead to cracks and possible danger from electric shocks.
2). All international building standards forbid the use of Aluminium for electric circuits inside households due to the risk of fire. This occurs because Aluminium as a metal has a coefficient of thermal expansion that is high. This means that with fluctuating temperatures, the wires will move quite a bit, and over a long period of time, will loosen up their joints or terminations. A loose joint is VERY bad, because it will expose the metal to air, and thus lead to oxidization. Aluminium Oxide is a poor conductor, and thus when it forms on these joints will lead to increased resistance, which causes the wire to heat up further when supplying the same power, and eventually sparks or even fire could start.
LICENSED ELECTRICIAN
you do not need to change all the Al wire to Cu.
by all means change the “home runs” to the kitchen, that i would advise.
but for the rest of your house you do not need to, however you do need to have those circuits “pigtailed”.
this means that at the panel and at all the outlets/switches you need to attach Cu wire “thhn” this is done using “purple” wire nuts that have a special dielectric compound inside them.
this will take care of any problems that you may have.
* the reason Al wire is no longer used is not because of corrosion leading to increased resistance….it is no longer used because of the way it reacts to heat…it gets hotter a lot faster than Cu and it also expands more than Cu.
where the wire is landed under a screw, at a switch for example the constant heating and cooling may cause the screw to back out slightly this will leave a slight gap and where there is a gap in a circuit there will be an arc, which is obviously a fire hazard.