I am staying at an apartment in China for a few weeks.  The other day the circuit breaker to my air conditioner popped.  I knew I smelt a funny smell coming from the breaker panel!  It finally went altogether last night.  Here is a picture of the breaker that the electrician pulled from the panel.  When I saw this circuit breaker I knew I had a good visual and needed to write up a lab note for my web site.  I saw the electrician do something smart after he pulled the breaker, he went and tightened up the screw terminal's for all the other breakers.

So whats the story surrounding aluminum wiring?
Many houses that were built in the late 1960's and early 1970's in the US were built with aluminum wiring.  Aluminum wiring was used because copper starting becoming very expensive around 1965.  Copper is now so expensive that my friend Alan Triolo, who is an electrician, makes some significant pocket change by going to renovation site's, ripping out the old copper wiring and selling it (with permission of course).  Another story comes to mind.  A few years ago the state of Nevada was having a serious vandalism problem.  The street lighting in some of desert locations was not working.  It seems vandals were ripping out the copper wiring from the street lighting to sell.

One final story.  When I was younger my family moved from Brooklyn to a nice, new, suburban home.  That house had aluminum wiring.  It was not until the 1970's that the issues surrounding aluminum wiring became well known.  When we found we had aluminum wiring we lived with a lot of anxiety.  Let me first try to calm you if your house has aluminum wiring.  I have not been able to find know cases of fires caused by aluminum wiring.  The few real problems seem to be related to incorrect installations.  On the other hand there are real issues to be concerned with.  You may not be able to get insurance unless this issue is taken care of.  The potential for a real problem is very real as my recent experience shows.

You do not need to rip out all the wiring in your home, though that is a possible solution.  Get a licensed electrician and talk over the alternatives.  He needs to go through the electrical devices in your home and make sure that they are rated to connect to Aluminum wire at a minimum.  Better yet, he can pigtail the ends of the aluminum wire with copper wire.  And finally he should tighten any loose or suspicious terminal connections on all Aluminum rated devices.