Can you use white for one leg of 240V circuit?

I've used it with much success in the applications where I wanted it but I'll want the EMT in my place because of the inherent EM shielding of the metal conduit. I play with a lot of signal and DATA cabling so I want to prevent as much interference as I can. I can't imagine the thousands of feet of conduit and wire I've run. It gets away from you because of the sheer volume. In the late 1980's I was installing a Halon fire suppression and alarm system in the mission control center for a part of The SDI Program and me and the crew I was working with, pulled 20,000 feet of 14 THHN stranded into different 3/4 EMT runs in one day. That was just a small part of the system and the stuff adds up. When you run a lot of EMT you can pretty much look at an area and know how you're going install your conduit runs because you'll do the job in your head first. Of course when I win the giant lottery and I get a gazillion dollars to build my dream home, I'll go with wide metal studs and steel frame which makes conduit easier to install anyway. ^_^

TDD

Reply to
The Daring Dufas
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yuck. I hate steel studs, unless they're installed at 12" OC or less.

Of course, I like plaster walls, too.

Nothing annoys me more than slamming a door and having every bloody wall in the house shake. just makes the place feel cheap, and is widespread among new construction McMansions... (even if they use wood 2x4s they often install them 24" OC instead of 16" like a good carpenter would. Hate hate hate hate hate hate it.)

nate

Reply to
N8N

Yea but, my walls would be sound damped which would add to their mass which would prevent rattling. No half way measures for a gazillionaire geek. ^_^

TDD

Reply to
The Daring Dufas

My walls would be hollow and wide enough to walk through. I would install the obligatory portraits with the eye holes cut out and I'd dig an escape tunnel into the woods behind the house that had rails and a jet propelled exit sled. And I'd have a moat and drawbridge with a secret trap door to send Saturday morning door-knocking, save your soul religious types straight to a moat baptism while fighting off the alligators and piranhas in the water. That way, I could get to look down at them and say: "You disagreed with something that ate you."

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

I used to have fun frightening those Jesus freaks when they came to the door by claiming to be in the middle of Satanic ritual sacrifice of a nubile virgin. If I saw them in the area going from house to house and had the time, I would call some friends to get in on it and setup a whole faux Satanic ritual to confront the proselytizers with. I had a couple of gal pals who did the greatest evil diva act which would send many of the door knockers running in terror. It was such fun back then. ^_^

TDD

Reply to
The Daring Dufas

I agree, labor costs would be through the roof. If you were building your own maybe. The materials would still be more but not as ridiculously higher as the labor would be. The benefit is not enough to make me consider it. It's not that hard to pull more wire in old residential work. You just have to go the long way occasionally.

Reply to
jamesgangnc

Chicago still requires EMT in residential the last time I heard but I think you can use Romex out in the burbs.

ENT (smurf) is a good compromise. You get the flexibility of being able to run different wire and not a huge labor factor.

In the addition I did in my house everything going down the block and concrete walls is in smurf. This is poured tie beam construction so what is in the wall is all you will ever get.

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home run of 3/4" smurf makes it easy to change your mind. There are also low voltage outlets for TV/phone/data.

It all originates in a J box where the home runs start. Changing what does what may be as easy as moving a wire between wire nuts.

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Reply to
gfretwell

...

sage

My home was built in 1990 and water heater is wired with 10-2 with ground. All the elements are 240 and there would be no place to connect a neutral. My electric range was wired for 10-3 with ground....... part of the reason is that at least part of the stove is

120VAC. Diagram of the stove shows an electronics board that gets its power from 110VAC.

Jimmie

Reply to
JIMMIE

Yes, as long as it's labelled or colored at each end what its color should be. I think It's in the NEC but I can't cite it.

IIRC, and you might want to check this out for sure:

In such a ckt, the norm is: RED = Always hot Blk = switched hot WH = Neutral

Reply to
Twayne

I always made the red the switched. So much for normal.

I had a foreman once that ordered purple to use for travelers and switch legs. I always thought that was a good idea.

Reply to
Metspitzer

** That's fine if you're pulling your own conductors. The Nec has no specific colors for switched legs, other than not using the white wire of a cable, as the return from a switch. All colors are considered "hot" except green, white, and natural gray. and no, I have no idea what the difference is between gray, and natural gray.
Reply to
RBM

Natural gray is really old and cranky wire. ^_^

TDD

Reply to
The Daring Dufas

Purple must have been used in 120/240v service for travellers... It would have been confused as a phase conductor in 277/480v Wye power systems...

Where it wouldn't be confused with the phase conductors -- in serious commercial/industrial applications all of the wiring from the panel to the farthest end of each circuit is colored by phase:

In 120/240v systems it is common to use the following colors for circuit conductors:

L1: Black L2: Red L3: Blue N: White G: Green or Green/Yellow stripe

Where you would also mark a "high leg" in a Delta wired system with Orange...

In 277/480v systems you would use the following colors:

L1: Brown L2: Orange (delta) Purple (wye) L3: Yellow N: Grey G: Green

Those color "common practices" are not code but they are generally adhered to due to the ease of servicing such installations without needing to resort to numbering each conductor and using wiring diagrams every time you open up connections to work on them... When you remove a cover plate on a switch for lighting and see the colors of the wires you would know which voltage you are working on...

As far as switch legs in residential construction:

White in a two-wire cable used as a switch leg is always to be the supply side of the leg, the switched load is to be on the Black conductor... Although this is going to be a moot point going forward as there is now a new code requirement that a neutral be provided at every switch location... That means three wire cables and White being the neutral...

In general practice in switch circuits Black is usually constant power, only being switched if there are multiple groups of lighting being fed off the one cable -- this is useful where you might have a ceiling fan where the fan portion is controlled by the pull string on the fan or an integral remote control... The lights on the fan would be powered by the Red conductor which is switched...

This logic also applies to wiring for receptacles, where with a three wire cable you could have a switched receptacle (or several switched receptacles) in a room where the Black conductor is constant power and the Red conductor is the switched load...

If only more people wired their houses with three or four wire cable they would be able to do many more interesting things later on down the road without needing to rip into the walls or snake additional wires in finished walls...

~~ Evan

Reply to
Evan

The guy insisting on purple for travelers may have been using 277volt lighting. Most of the 120 volt travelers I've ever seen were blue.

TDD

Reply to
The Daring Dufas

You wouldn't want to use the purple color out of phase...

So perhaps on a lighting circuit fed from L2 he could have used purple travelers...

Some installations are fairly anal about maintaining that color coding so you can tell instantly what phase your circuit is powered on the second you take off a cover plate or open an enclosure...

~~ Evan

Reply to
Evan

It's too bad I don't have time for much fun with them anymore. I did mount a 12" alarm bell right above the front door to discourage the more persistent ones. They're the ones who knock forever (and could easily be looking for homes to target for burglary) and upset all the neighborhood dogs. It's easy to tell when they are "working the area." The best part is watching them skulk away like they didn't do anything. The worst of the bunch was not Jehovah's Witlesses, but some kids Verizon hired to peddle FIOS. Verizon went from "no information about FIOS in your area is available" to banging my door down every few days.

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

Some of them don't understand what "No Soliciting" or "No Salesmen" on a sign at your front gate means. Pepper spray helps train them. :-)

TDD

Reply to
The Daring Dufas

That sounds more like a European spec; brown, blue &

Reply to
Twayne

The Daring Dufas posted for all of us...

Is the "Just for Wire" ?

Reply to
Tekkie®

Yea, whenever you want to renew the color of your old wiring. It renews the color of the wiring but doesn't do much for the cracks in the insulation. There are other products that work for filling in the cracks and wrinkles in your old wiring, I think one is called "Almay Electra". ^_^

TDD

Reply to
The Daring Dufas

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