Growing cost concerns have pushed the industry to reevaluate aluminum conductors as a viable option. Our office has successfully implemented aluminum conductors on a variety of projects from Healthcare to Recreation facilities. We have found that the compact stranded aluminum conductors that are available today are far superior to their past predecessors. We do, however, limit aluminum to sizes above #4. All conductors below #4 remain copper. This is largely due to the number of terminations that are made at the smaller sizes, but also considers the negligible cost difference of the smaller sized conductors. I'd also like to point out that I've seen many many failures in "copper only" systems in the past where a preventative maintenance program was neglected. Bottom line is that both need to be monitored and maintained, cleaned, scanned, etc. Good Luck. Dave
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