Rewiring in Jacksonville: aluminum, cloth, and knob-and-tube

Three kinds of wire in First Coast walls get a house flagged: aluminum branch-circuit wiring, installed in houses built from about 1965 to 1973 when copper prices spiked; cloth-insulated wire in the houses of Springfield, Riverside, Avondale, Ortega, San Marco and Lincolnville built before about 1950; and knob-and-tube, the oldest, still live in some of those same houses. The Citizens four-point form asks about each by name and, for aluminum, asks for separate documentation of any remediation certified by a licensed electrician.

Call or send the form and get connected with an independent local electrical contractor who serves your area. Say what the inspector or the insurer wrote, the year of the house, and whether any device has felt warm or stopped working.

Aluminum: remediation or rewire

Aluminum branch wiring fails at the connections, not along the wire. The Florida Building Commission's background paper on aluminum wiring and the CPSC's work behind it describe the mechanism: aluminum expands more than copper, creeps under the screw, oxidizes, and the loose joint heats. Two routes fix it.

• Remediation at every connection: a COPALUM crimp (a tool-applied cold weld, by a certified installer) or an AlumiConn connector pigtails copper to every aluminum conductor at every receptacle, switch, fixture and junction box. The Citizens form names both methods and asks for the documentation. Aluminum-rated devices (CO/ALR) alone are a lesser fix that many insurers do not accept.
• A full rewire: new copper cable to every device, new boxes where needed, usually a new panel. More disruption, a permanent answer, and the route when the walls are open for a remodel anyway.
• Either way the work is permitted, inspected, and documented for the insurer with the electrician's license number.

Cloth and knob-and-tube

The historic neighborhoods have both, often side by side with 1970s additions.

• Cloth-insulated wire (rubber under a cloth braid, 1920s to 1950s) becomes brittle; the insulation cracks at boxes and where it was handled. It is usually ungrounded. The fix is a rewire of the affected circuits, not a repair.
• Knob-and-tube: two separate conductors on porcelain, no ground, and it must not be buried in insulation. Still live in some Springfield and Riverside attics. Most insurers will not write a house with active knob-and-tube; the form asks specifically whether it is active.
• A rewire of a plaster-and-lath house is done with fished cable and careful openings; ask the contractor how they handle plaster and whether the quote includes patching.

What the quote should list

Which circuits or which devices, the method (COPALUM, AlumiConn, or new copper), whether the panel is included, the permit and inspection, the patching, and the documentation the insurer will receive. A remediation quote that does not say how many connections it covers is not finished.