Electrical – GFCI for aluminum-wired house

aluminum-wiringelectricalgfciusa

I recently bought a house built in the US in the 1970s. It has all-aluminum wiring.

A last-second fix to pass the occupancy inspection involved replacing some malfunctioning GFCIs with, unbeknownst to me, the cheapest available basic GFCIs.

None of the replacement GFCIs are marked CO/ALR, but I could not find new production GFCIs rated for CO/ALR either.

What is the preferred GFCI for aluminum-wired houses? Should I simply check the connections periodically, or is there a better way?

EDIT- breaker panel shown
breaker box

Best Answer

Kill two birds with one stone.

Given the aluminum wiring, you really want AFCI breakers in the panel. That will catch most aluminum wire failure modes. Thing is, once you are committed to an AFCI breaker, an AFCI+GFCI breaker is only $10 more.

All breakers are Cu-Al rated, which is a standard for breakers. This standard is fully modern and usable. Not to be confused with the old, faulty Al-Cu rating for receptacles and switches which is what caused all the problems with aluminum wiring.

Once you have an AFCI breaker, convert receptacles and switches to CO-ALR at your leisure. And done.

Pigtailing

Yeah, you could put copper pigtails on the aluminum wire at the outlet. However a couple problems with that. First, most splice types have problems. Alumiconns are excellent if torqued properly, but they are both expensive and bulky, and the box is a tight fit already with a GFCI breaker. You could end up needing an extension box such as a Legrand Surface Conduit Starter Kit.