Blue and yellow wires are usually live wires as well. One of the hot wires attaches to a brass terminal on one side of the outlet and the other attaches to a brass terminal on the other side.
How To Wire A Light Switch 3 Way Switch Wiring Guide
Old house wiring red black white. Identifying house electric wiring colors written by. Im trying to understand how to connect a modern switch up in the place of an existing old one and it just isnt making sense to me. Ground wires return fault current to earth ground protecting the individual from electrocution. Youll have two cables in the switch box a live one with a black and white wire and the one going to the outlet which has a red black and white wire. 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. As hot wires can be connected to each other a black wire can be connected to a red wire.
That is 120v each between the two is 240v. When measured with respect to the white neutral wire the red wire carries the same 120 volt current that the black one carries making the voltage across these two hot wires 240 volts. A ground wire is used as a protective measure. Join the black wires from both cables together add a 6 inch jumper cable of the same gauge twist them all together and screw on a wire cap. You might find them on fans or lights where they can assist a multi way switch. Sheathed cable with a red wire always is accompanied by a black wire a white wire and a bare wire.
Do not connect both red and black unless you know the fan is wired for. Join the white wires and cap them in the same way but omit the jumper wire. The white is always neutral and green or bare is ground. My house was built in the 50s with wiring from that time period. Original old house wiring was often red and black with no white wire. Never attempt to use a black wire as a neutral or ground wire.
12 awg for 20 amp circuits and 14 awg for 10 and 15 amp circuits. They should both be of the same wire gauge. If you are writing from north america both red and black are used as hot. White and gray wires are almost always neutral. Green wires are used for grounding and should only be. You should also be looking at the condition of cables as well as the sheathing of the cables.
The wiring in some. Very old homes may have cable that excludes the bare wire. If you have the previous colours red black and green earth or bare earth very dangerous we would recommend you have an electrician test to check the integrity of the cable as it could be more than 50 years old and unreliable. A white wire that has been marked with black means its acting as a hot wire and is no longer neutral. A white wire may be marked with a piece of black electrical tape at its ends. Red wires are usually secondary live wires in circuits.
When you see either a green wire or a bare copper wire you can be sure it is a ground wire. Red wires are also hot wires. So what they probably did was make a connection with new wire from the breaker panel red black and.