Hate to rip this one off topic Sean, but I think the original question has been answered... was going to pick your wife's brains on something.
Started replacing plugs in the garage - four of them plus five light fixtures and the GD opener are on one circuit, one single plug (the natural place for you to plug in a block heater) is on another and is currently dead for whatever reason - I didn't look too closely yet.
Traced back the wiring - it's all 14-2 or 14-3 copper... all the way back until the buried cable coming into the garage from the house, which is, of course, aluminum (did anything GOOD come out of the 70s?).
Since I'm paranoid about AL wiring, I ran out and got a specifically listed CU/ALR duplex outlet for that one. So I have - 12-3AL coming up into the garage, the red conductor energizes the outlet I'm replacing with an ALR listed outlet and continues from there as copper as I explained. Since I usually replace aluminum wiring and have never really tried to make it safe, unsure how best to deal with it.
I'm under the assumption that the safest way to make a connection between AL and CU is through an AL rated outlet rather than pigtailing with a marrette. So the red conductor as it sits should be reasonably safe. Now the black side is pigtailed with a Marrette in the same box onto the copper run that takes it to the box it feeds, which if I understand correctly, can lead to fire (oxidation occurs, resistance goes up, hot spot, marrette melts and the spring turns into a cigarette lighter). Does it make any more sense to use the top and bottom plugs in the duplex (with the hot tab broken) to make the transition? Or will this lead to overloading the neutral? Would it be any safer than the way it's pigtailed now?
Bren R.
