**Taytee**

angelaggie

I asked my father some questions... 

1) breaker amp..20 or 15

2) outlet amp...20 or 15

3)what type of outlet? Is it made for copper or aluminum wire?

He said from the pics it looks like it's the incorrect outlet for the wire, which would mean just switching out all your outlets. He said if it was wiring your breaker should trip before the outlet would smoke.  

angelaggie

Ok. He studied the pictures more. He said it looks like you have aluminum 15 amp outlets on copper wire. He says most likely you have 20 amp breakers. 

He said overtime aluminum and copper will melt each other due to each one expanding at different rates. He said your wire isn't melted which mean its not a wire problem, most likely an outlet problem. Easiest thing to do is go by 20 amp outlets for COPPER wire. It's not very expensive and should solve your problem. He said the only reason someone would build a house with aluminum outlets is cause they're cheap and shady builders. He's not sure if that was a code violation at the time the house was built.

He also said your outlets look very loosely connected to the wires.  

Taytee

Thank you for the insight! Yes - 15a outlets, 20a breakers.

The outlet in the kitchen - the screws were not tightened one bit. Like factory made, with the wires looped onto the screws. The electrician that was here said it can happen if you get distracted "We've all locked our keys in the car once or twice right?" But that we should inspect all of them anyway to make sure there are not more because over time the normal vibration of a house will shake them all loose and cause arcing. The 2nd one was at least a little turned but yes, loose overall.

As for code - it's OK to use wire that doesn't match the recepticle specs and marry it up to a breaker that doesn't match that outlet either? Seems like an accident waiting to happen to me!

 

angelaggie

Well my father's exact words were "an idiot hooked those up." he said what builders will do is put copper wires with copper outlets, then the shady ones will go back after inspection and replace the copper outlets with aluminum outlets. He said some have even been known to do that with wall studs, take every other one out after inspection. 

A 20 amp breaker with 15 amp outlets is actually pretty common since most things don't pull 15 amps anyway. He did say that 12 outlets on one breaker is insane. He always recommends no more than 6. He said though since your house is a two story that re-wiring to get a separate breaker would be very difficult and very expensive.

He said best bet is change outlets or hire an electrician. My dad isn't licensed any more. He's actually an electrical and mechanical engineer that let all his other licenses expire. He's my go to handy man. He use to have an electricians license, plumbing, and HVAC.