"But what was more of a surprise was when the electrician really went in to do the work," Mayeaux said. "With the extent of damage that was there, it was surprising that the house had not burnt down."
She said, "When I saw that, let's just say that I was really glad we had it addressed right away." She and the sellers split the repair cost, Mayeaux said.
For More Information
Tyco Electronics Corp. of Harrisburg keeps lists by state of electricians that it trains to use its special COPALUM connectors. COPALUM is the only repair system for aluminum wiring approved by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. To find nearby authorized providers, call 800-522-6752.
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The CPSC has been warning since the early 1970s that homes built or renovated from 1965 to 1973 with aluminum branch-circuit wiring are a fire risk.
Branch-circuit wires are those that distribute electricity to each room from the service panel. In other words, they're the wires that run to lights, switches and most outlets. They're much smaller versions of the heavier, high-voltage aluminum wires that typically run to the house from the street or that run inside the house from the service panel to major appliances.
Builders started substituting aluminum for copper branch wiring in homes in the mid-1960s when copper prices soared. In addition to the 2 million homes that the CPSC estimates were built or modified with aluminum during the eight years when it was the cheaper alternative to copper, other homes built or updated later might have some of the material because it remained on dealers' shelves.
The percentage of homes involved, though, is small -- there are about 107 million housing units in the United States.
The CPSC started raising alarms after a 1974 home fire in Hampton Bays, N.Y., in which two people died. Fire officials blamed the fire on a faulty aluminum wire connector at an outlet.
Numerous complaints from homeowners about overheated outlets and switches led to a commission research project. The research showed that homes wired with aluminum wire made before 1972 are 55 times more likely to have one or more connections reach "fire hazard conditions" than is a home wired with copper. Modified wire, switches and outlets that were made after 1972 still didn't pass muster, according to the federal agency.
Hazard Not Always Recognized
The problem, the researchers said, is not the wire itself or the insulating cable, but the connections where the splices are. "That is where the burnouts occur," said Jesse Aronstein, a longtime CPSC research consultant.
The CPSC tried to get the material recalled, but lost in court, Aronstein said. The commission was able only to conduct a public-information campaign, warning homeowners of potential danger.
The product, however, sank under the weight of the criticism, Aronstein said.
"By the mid-'70s electricians would have had to be crazy or desperate to put it in" because of the publicity, he said. "Basically it died by its own reputation."
Agency officials say that what's upsetting is that many homeowners still don't recognize the hazard. Although the agency estimates that "tens of thousands" of homeowners have heeded its advice and installed a specific repair system called a COPALUM crimp connector, many more have not.
"All fires are of concern to us, but electrical fires concern us more because they occur behind the drywall and are hard to detect and to react to. When it comes through the wall, it is a fully involved fire," said Scott Wolfson, an agency spokesman.
