If you can't answer this you have no business doing illegal electrical work at anybody's house.

Dealing with aluminum wiring issues in branch circuits is not a DIY item.

If the breaker is a proper one for the board it will be marked as to what wires are legally terminated there. If you can put 14g copper in it (likely) then you can run a complete copper branch circuit.

Just hope that neither your friends insurance company or your building department finds out.

There is a spare slot in the panel box and I would purchase a 15 amp breaker for this circuit. I've done work like this before that was inspected and approved by the appropriate electrical authority. My question was that if aluminium wiring was originally used to wire this house, could the panel box be one specifically for aluminium wiring. I don't think so since the entrance line feeding the service box is aluminium for any residential installation, whether the house is wired with copper or aluminium. I just need to confirm this

Never heard of a box box being specifically rated for aluminum. The box doesn't matter anyway. It's the new breaker that matters. It must be rated for copper. It will be rated for copper.

Just a hint for everyone: When "doing work at a friend's house" or a relative's etc, if you do not have trade liability insurance for it and your input is "no charge" be sure that all materials are paid for on the homeowner's credit card and that while you can put in all the new conduit and run and prepare all the new wiring, do not connect it up to anything.

The homeowner should, after a discussion with you of what is to be done next, state the correct way to connect each item, then do it with your verbal support. This will impress on everyone who did what and when. This is important if a later unrelated incident should damage the home and an insurance company goes looking for someone to share their pain. The fact that the homeowner did the work closes that door and protects the person who was just helping out.

Most of the older aluminum panels are Sylvania or Federal Pacific and new breakers may be difficult to find.

When you say a combination of aluminum and copper, I assume you mean that copper is pigtailed to the aluminum in order to use regular receptacles and switches. If yes,I further presume the proper wire nuts were used.

The house in question was purchased by my friend 4 years ago. Last year when she wanted some older basements outlets changed to the Decora modern type, I found that some had copper wires coming into the box. I replaced those outlets. Some had aluminium wires. I did not replace those. I assume that the previous owner had some circuits changed. I will remove the panel cover to see how many circuits start off as aluminium. The box is Stab Lok. My plan right now is to run 1 copper wire circuit from the box to feed a couple of new outlets. There is a spare slot to install a proper 15 amp breaker.

Umm....your friend has serious problems. Aluminum wiring MIGHT be acceptable by itself, but if some other DIYer like you has been working on it, some of those branch circuits may be serious fire hazards (for instance if there is a aluminum wire and a copper wire just wirenutted together somewhere in those circuits).

Further, the FPE StabLok panels are known hazards on their own rights.

I get the feeling I might be being trolled.

To the OP, as I said before, most of the older aluminum service panels involve makes that may not be easy to find. The Federal Pacific panels were obsoleted many years ago as they lost their UL listing. These panels are fire traps as they are notorious for not tripping on overloads. This is a job for a qualified electrician.

Ronnatalie, not sure I understand your comment about being trolled.

"The Federal Pacific panels were obsoleted many years ago"...What about here in Canada? They are listed on the Canadian Home Depot website.
As far as mixture of aluminium and copper, this was done by another previous owner, who was an electrician. Hopefully, he knew was he was doing and did a safe job.

Recent Federal Pioneer panels in Canada seem OK, but older ones are NOT. Here's the site with the most definitive information.

Here is a link that might be useful: Canadian FPE

Thanks for the info. Now I'm really concerned about the breaker panel at my friend's house. I checked out this link and they mention a recall on breakers made btwn 1996 and 1997. My friend's house was built in 1968. Should I still be concerned?

Yes. Did you read the page?
You may still have the recalled breakers in the panel. The proponent of that site argues that he believes that the Canadian panels still suffer from the same bad news that the US ones have.

Ok, this started as a simple question but things are getting complicated. Yes, I did read the page and it did mention breakers made btwn 1996 & 1997. How can these breakers possibly be in a panel box that was installed almost 20 years before the breakers were even made?

You're not reading the full site. It's not just that particular breaker recall. It is the proponents assertion that the older canadian FPE panels have the same problem that the US counterparts have. This panel is bad news, the fact that aluminum branch circuits are present is a red flag, the fact that amateurs have been and are continuing to poke at the wiring without having a clue is a great danger.

well when i worke on alum houses i sugest that the panel where wire connections are made be pooked with anti corosion agent once a year as well as any copper alum joint. Your the proper way to up grade a plug to a modern one would be to pigtail with copper from the alum and put some pookey in the wire nut if you dont want to buy the store ones. also inspect any wire you work with for corosion. The panels generaly dont react like the copper does (quickly) so its only the copper alum connections that are suspect

Some POOKEY in the wire nut is NOT SUFFICIENT.
You must use listed copper-aluminum fittings.
The PURPLE wire nuts are listed for this, but the jury is still out as to their efficacy. The COPALUM crimp connection (not a DIY solution) is regarded to be the best things short of rewiring the branch circuits.

I have never heard of repookeying connections once a year. There have been receptacles and switches made for aluminum wiring for some time but they are expensive.

When we are hired to upgrade aluminum service we start by replacing dangerous service panels. Then we replace all switches and receptacles, remove the copper pigtails, clean up the aluminum and connect it directly to the special fixtures. We find there is usually enough aluminum wire in each box to accomplish this. If it should be a problem, we reconnect copper pigtails using the purple wirenuts and standard fixtures.

IF we add circuits, you obviously use 14/2 or 12/2 copper.

I originally started this post on Jan. 2. I just want to make it clear that I do not intend to work on any of the aluminium wiring in this house. All that I want to do is:

1) Install new receptacle box in wall
2) Run new 14/2 copper wire back to panel box
3) Shut main power off
4) Open panel box to install new 15A Stab-Lok breaker
5) Make proper connections
6) Put cover back on and turn main power back on

I know that only licensed electricians should touch any of the existing aluminium wiring.

Other than Ron Nathalie, does anybody else have any feedback or concerns regarding older Canadian Federal Pioneer panels? Like I said before, this is most probably the original panel from when the house was built in 1968.

Joining aluminum and copper wiring must be done in a specific and precise manner. The 2 metals have several things going against them when joined...electrolisis...meaning to destroy with electricity...also both metals expand and contract at different temperatures and rates. The pookey does help with electrolisis but does not help with the different rates of expansion and contraction (i.e. movement which will eventually cause arcing and loose connections). Just some more info... Federal Pacific lost their UL status primarily in the commercial products area. When the breakers would trip, they would arc in a manner that if they did so in an explosive atmosphere, it could (and has) caused a fire in the box itself. Federal Pacific disageed with that judgement and did nothing to correct the problem. There are generic replacement breakers sold at HD in both the US and Canada for the Fed. Pac breakers and the breaker itself is UL listed and safe. They run about 40 US bucks each for a 15 amp. I personally do not like the residential FED PAC boxes...they are too small and I'm not an advocate of double breakers. I would suggest the home owner upgrade...the payback would come in reduced homeowner insurance rates, most insurance companies offer that.

STILL WRONG.
The pookey doesn't fix the electrolysis. It's an antioxidation chemical. Electrolysis doesn't require oxygen.

It's there to stop the Aluminum oxidation that interferes with a good pressure contact between the aluminum conductor and the wire nut itself.

If anybody bothers to read ALL the information about the FPE breakers and panels, a number of things will become obvious.

The first is that FPE fudged UL inspections for a number of years, and nobody knows how many. These inspections had to do with the breaker tripping under overload conditions.

Second, the Canadian Federal Pioneer breaker recall involved some re-branded Federal Pacific breakers of unknown production dates, and Federal Pioneer manufactured breakers produced during 1996 and 1997.

Third, although not widely known, the current replacement breakers made for FPE panels are simply Federal Pioneer breakers re-branded by whoever holds the franchise to sell them in the US., not sure what happens with this process in Canada.

You can take to the bank, however, that up until at least the late 90s virtually ANY breaker produced to fit in an FPE panel is suspect as it was likely produced with the original FPE tooling.

In addition to the breaker tripping issues there are a number of issues with the buss design in the panels and these in themselves are enough to warrent replacing the panel. Whether or not Federal Pioneer has changed the buss design to eliminate all the problems is unknown to me as I don't see any of the stuff where I'm located.

What I do know is that none of my family has ever slept in a house with FPE breakers since I became aware of the problems back in the 70's. You are obviously free to use your own judgement in the matter, of course.

Additionally, the company that manufactures Square D, Schneider, owns Federal Pioneer and appears to have been knowledgeable in the re-branding of FPE breakers that got recalled in Canada. I won't use Square D unless pressed for that reason - money got in the way of common sense.