Tried aluminum wiring repair paste on a 1970s house... big mistake

I was rewiring a house built in 1971 last month. Read online that the special AlumiConn paste would make splices safe. Applied it to every junction box. Two weeks later the homeowner called saying lights flickered. Opened it back up and found corrosion already forming on three connections. Learned the hard way that paste is only for certain conditions, not all. Has anyone else had this stuff fail on them?

3 comments

3 Comments

paige1661d ago

The paste is just one piece of the puzzle, not a magic cure-all. You gotta prep the wire right and torque the connectors to spec, or the paste won't do a thing. People blame the product when they skip the basics like cleaning off old oxide or using the right grade of compound for their specific wire alloy... @emma96 said it herself, matching the paste to the copper alloy fixed her conductivity problems. That's the real lesson here, not that the paste is junk.

mileslane1d ago

Did you check if the paste was actually rated for the specific alloy in those terminals? Lots of guys skip that step and blame the product.

emma961d ago

Lots of guys skip that step" is exactly what I was guilty of (oops). Once I actually matched the paste to the specific copper alloy in my boat terminals, the conductivity issues disappeared completely. So yeah @mileslane, reading the fine print on that tube made all the difference for me.