Depew is a railroad village east of Buffalo, straddling the line between Cheektowaga and Lancaster, and it has the highest 1960s housing share of any place we serve - nearly a third of its homes were built in that one decade. That puts Depew at the center of the aluminum-wiring question.
Tell us what's happening at the Depew property and we'll come take a look.
Depew's roughly 7,100 housing units are unusually concentrated. Census ACS estimates for 2020-2024 show about 32 percent built in the 1960s and 26 percent in the 1950s, with 11 percent from the 1970s. About 15 percent predates 1940, in the old village core near the tracks and Transit Road, and barely 1 percent has been built since 2000. The village grew up around the rail yards and the Depew station that still serves Amtrak, and its postwar expansion filled the streets between with capes, ranches and split-levels.
The 1960s figure is the one that matters most. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission identifies homes built from 1965 to the mid-1970s as the ones most likely to have aluminum branch-circuit wiring, and its data show pre-1972 aluminum-wired homes are 55 times more likely to have connections reach fire hazard conditions than copper-wired homes. With nearly a third of Depew from that decade, we treat every 1960s house here as a candidate until we have looked at the wire.
The signs are warm or discolored cover plates, flickering lights, outlets that stop working intermittently and a faint hot-plastic smell. The fix, at every receptacle, switch, fixture and junction box, is either a COPALUM crimp or an AlumiConn connector joining a copper pigtail to the aluminum conductor, or, where the owner is renovating, a copper rewire of the circuit. We do the whole house, not a sample, because a connection that is fine today loosens tomorrow.
The same houses have Federal Pacific and other 1960s panels at 100 amps, usually full. Panel replacement often goes with the aluminum correction, and it is the point at which arc-fault and ground-fault protection get added to a house that never had either. Depew's 1950s homes, the other quarter of the village, have copper cable with hardening insulation and the same few-and-long circuit layout as the rest of the postwar ring.
Depew's 1950s and 1960s houses were also built with electric ranges and dryers more often than the pre-war stock, so a 240-volt circuit or two already exists in most of them. That is helpful for a charger install only if the panel has capacity, which on a 100-amp service with a range, a dryer and central air it frequently does not; the load calculation settles it before any equipment is ordered.
Depew issues its own building permits through the village building department even though its land lies in two towns, and electrical work is inspected by an approved electrical inspection agency under the New York State Uniform Code and the 2023 National Electrical Code. Homeowners on the Cheektowaga or Lancaster side of the village boundary but outside the village go through those towns instead; both have their own pages on this site.
Detached garages behind the village's older homes make EV charger installs a buried-run job with a garage subpanel, and the load calculation on a 100-amp 1960s service frequently points to a 200-amp upgrade first. Standby generators for the furnace and sump pump round out the list, as they do everywhere east of Buffalo where wind and snow take lines down each winter.
Depew is part of our Western New York service area. Free on-site estimates, no obligation.
Call the local line or send the form, and we will set up a free visit to look at the wiring, the panel and the problem.
Request a free estimate Call (716) 466-5182