Electrical in 50 year old house - what to do

[Troy Welch]

I am rehabbing this 1st property.  Part of closing negotiations was that they replace the breaker box.  They hired a professional electrician who installed a 125 amp breaker box.  It looks like they did a very good job - I'm no electrician, but it looks better than the previous.

Most outlets/switches are 2 wire.  What do you guys recommend I do at this stage? 

I found this information on Homelectrical

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) only recommends the following three methods to fix aluminum wire problems permanently

1. Completely replace your home with copper wire
2. Pigtail the aluminum wire ends with special crimp connectors called COPALUM
3. Connect the aluminum wire ends with aluminum to copper

Any other ideas from the pros??? I am hoping you don't say rewire... Is there a maybe a staged approach?

2nd post - You guys gave a LOT of good feedback on the insulation / vapor barrier post - Thanks a LOT.

[Gilbert Dominguez]

Actually to do a complete rewire job is the easiest to accomplish of all your options. I am a journeyman electrician as well as a previously licensed electrical contractor with a work force of over 100 electircians working for me, but the past is the past. However especially when you are talking about Aluminum wiring you really do want to repace is all with modern copper cable that has a ground wire in the cable. I will explain my reasons why. Althuogh coductive aluminum wire has a lot of resistance and that lead to the wires getting hot. An awful lot of houses catch fire because of hot aluminum wiring. Pig tails of no pig tails at splices and electrical components. The thing about heat is that it easily transfer and heat damage is permanent, no way to undo it. A typical Do it yourself book you can buy at Home Depot, Lowes and the like should suffice to guide you. There are a few ways to improve you entire electrical system installations without rewiring but I am not going to go into that because simply I would not recommend it. Maybe that may come across as not being investor friendly but I have just come across too many failures and houses on fire to have a different opinion about it.

That's like asking your doctor of many years experience about heart problems you've been having and saying, " Please do not recommend heart surgery even if my life depends on it".