I wonder how many people remember the old drink cans with the pull tab tops. The tab comes completely off the can and has to be thrown away. Anyone old enough to remember that has probably stepped one of those tabs and gotten a nasty cut.
Those old cans were made from steel. Then along came the new and improved aluminum can with various types of non pull tab tops. Aluminum has many desirable properties which make it great choice for making cans and many other products. One product it is used to make is electrical wires. Many homes have at least some aluminum wire in their electrical system.
But there is a problem with aluminum wire or more specifically with one type of wire, single strand branch wire.
There are basically two kinds of wire in your home, single strand wire and multi strand wire. Single strand as the name implies is one solid piece of wire. It's the most common and is essentially used for wiring all the outlets and lights.
The multi strand wire is many strands of wire. This type of wire is usually thicker and used for larger appliances and the main feed wire into the home. Having many pieces of wire woven together makes it more flexible. This is a very desirable characteristic when trying to bend a large diameter length of wire.
Single strand or solid aluminum wire was used to wire homes from about the mid 60s into the 70s. It is no longer used because it has one very undesirable trait; it starts fires.
Aluminum is very thermally conductive and expansive. When a wire is under load, like when you turn on the TV to watch a game with a chilled beverage in your aluminum can, it gets warm. The more stuff on the warmer it gets. Heat makes stuff swell or expand, especially metal.
Why is this bad? Because over time the connection points, like those on plugs and switches, can get loose. Loose connections cause the wire to get hot and arc (spark). The rest is easy to figure out.
So you see you should never use beer cans for making house wiring or wire a house after consuming beer in cans.
James Quarello
NRSB #8SS0022
JRV Home Inspection Services, LLC
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