My house was built in 1970 with the kind of Al wire that starts fires. I had a couple of new copper branch circuits pulled from the electrical box when we remodeled the kitchen and MBA, but most of the house is still Al. I've been slowly but steadily replacing outlets and switches with AL/CU rating, and meticulously pigtailing junctions using the purple nuts (required by the city inspector) and careful prep procedure outlined in [url]http://www.inspect-ny.com/aluminum/alreduce.htm[/url] I also had a new 150A box installed to replace the existing dangerous Federal box and breakers (they're also good fire-starters!). I wasn't offered AFCI's, however, which I would have paid for had I known they existed. Some of the lights have intermittently been dimming and sizzling for a month, and I finally found the culprit: a junction of 2 copper and 2 aluminum wires that the electrician had made. Most of the purple nut and about 1" of insulation on each wire had burnt away and the whole thing was ready to torch my house! Other connections in that outlet box showed that the electrician had not abraded and twisted the wires as recommended in the website above. I am now redoing as many of the electrician's junctions as I can find, but now that I know about AFCI's, I'd like to protect my house. FINALLY my question: Can I hire someone to install one 150A main AFCI breaker? Would it properly protect my whole house? Are electrical boxes set up for a main breaker like this? (my new box is a Siemens). I assume this would cost much less than re-replacing the 2 dozen branch breakers (at almost $1k over what I already spent on the new box), Given the high stakes (the lives of my home and family), I'd appreciate replies only from knowledgeable Al wiring experts! Thanks!

I have a kitchen split recepticle that was acting up (tripping Breaker) if i used a coffee drip, we replaced the recepticle and it seemed fine for a long time. Now i noticed that my coffee pot is tripping the switch again, replaced the switch again with no luck. What is bothering me is that i noticed that the top plug does not trip the breaker when the coffee pot goes through its complete cycle but if i put it in the bottom plug and start the pot up it trips the breaker after a little while. any help would be appreciated