I looked and the silver color immediately told me aluminum, but the insulation looks older than the 60’s or 70’s. This house was built in 1903, originally wired with K&T, 60 amp service (so probably in the 20’s or 30’s). It had an addition put on in the late 50’s.
It is also the only suspect wire in the entire panel - everything else is obviously copper.
I scratched it and it stayed the silver color.
I’m thinking this may be a leftover KT wire based on the insulation. Your thoughts please?
(For those that just say “Report what you see & move on” or something about reaching into a panel, this is in my house & I opened the main…I’m trying to learn something.)
Tinned Copper, looks too old to be aluminum. Just loosen it to get a look at the cut end or find the corresponding ungrounded conductor(hot). It will be aluminum too if this one is.
Thanks but I am no longer in that camp. Roberts’ gentle correction got me thinking: I’ve soldered a lot of copper in my days, it needs flux, but doesn’t need to be pre-tinned to solder well. When I get to thinking, I research. When I research, I learn.