Red electrical wire indicates the secondary live wires in a 220 volt circuit used in some types of switch legs and in the interconnection between smoke detectors that are hard wired into the power system. The most common home wiring uses non metallic sheathed cable with three wires in it.
Wiring A Control With 1 Black Wire One Red Wire And One White Wire Single Pole Application
Does the red wire connect to black or white. Typically a ceiling fan is wired so the fan motor has power all the time by the black wire and the light of the ceiling fan is controlled by the wall switch through the red wire. Green wires are used for grounding and should only be connected to other green wires. The ground wire also connects to the switch but the white wire gets spliced to the circuit neutral wire and bypasses the switch. Some sheathed cable includes a fourth red wire which makes it useful for wiring. Usually though you see a red wire only when the outlet is a 240 volt one or when its controlled by a switch. One of the conducting wires the neutral is white.
White wires are always neutral in 110 volt circuits but can be used as the second hot wire or switch leg in 240 volt applications and three way switches respectively. Black white and bare. You can connect a red wire to another red wire or to a black wire. When there is a separate red and black wire in the ceiling fan box this usually means that one of the wires is controlled by a wall switch. The cable has a black wire which connects directly to the circuit and a red wire which connects to the switch. As hot wires can be connected to each other a black wire can be connected to a red wire.
That color is mandated by the national electrical code. By convention the other is usually black but it could be red. How to replace an electrical outlet 0000.