Electrician wanted/needed for questioning

Me and fishadow change out 100+/- zinsco and federal pacific panels/services a year.  Sometimes I pull out old breakers and they just crumble apart in my hands from years of faults.  Definately don't want them in your house. 

Aluminum wire is a nono on branch circuits.  The real danger is when it is combined with non aluminum rated devices, not noalox'd properly or tightened down enough, or connected with copper wiring in the circuit.   but for a service, subpanel, or appliance feed its fine when handled correctly.  As I said, the majority of our electrical al grid is run on aluminum, pg&e wires, etc...

.........Sometimes I pull out old breakers and they just crumble apart in my hands from years of faults.  Definately don't want them in your house. .........

Me too - the bars are pitted and sometimes even mostly gone from arcing. Nothing quite like the peace-of-mind gained from replacing Zinsco panels!

Right on @manbearpig! Don't know if we've met before. I live in Alameda, currently doing the 5 year apprenticeship at Local 595. We learned the L1 & L2 legs series each other when the nuet flakes out.

If I remember correctly, a job I did when I was a helper involving a Zinsco panel, there is a paticular part in the panel that fails... something to the effect of all Zinscos really being 3 phase, but they put some funky jumper in to create a single phase box for the masses. I think the jumper handles the nuetral leg where the B phase would have lived. Maybe inspecting the panel with a meter and performing maintanance would be called for.

I agree Al wire isnt as good as Cu, but it's fine for non-branch circuits, and just needs more care on install and maintainance.

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