Electrical Hazards that may have been installed when your home or commercial building was originally constructed:
a) Aluminum Conductors: Aluminum branch circuit conductors are a fire hazard due to expansion and contraction and oxidation. Aluminum branch circuit conductors expand and contract causing connections at the device, fixture or equipment to become loose, causing arching, resulting in a heated connection, then cooling down when either turned off or connection is lost creating a snowball effect of heating and expanding, cooling and contraction until the heat builds up, causing the insulation to melt either back to another conductor or to the point where the conductor enters the box possibly causing a short or an arc, which may result in a fire. To remedy the situation you should hire a licensed electrical contractor to either replace the aluminum branch circuit conductors with copper conductors or splice the aluminum branch circuit conductors together with an approved connector type to a copper pigtail, then connect the copper conductors to the device, fixture or equipment. Please click on the links below for information on aluminum conductors.