Hello,
Just want to get the terminology correct.
Understand the differences between the Ground and the neutral in house wiring O.K., but for the bare wire that comes in from the street (along with the two phases) to the house service panel:
is this correctly called a Ground wire or a Neutral wire ?
Thanks, Bob
It is a grounded conductor commonly called the neutral. The wire that connects to your water pipe and ground rods is called a grounding conductor or more specifically a grounding electrode conductor.
It is a neutral, which is grounded by the utility company on their end and grounded by the customer on their end
It is a neutral and caries the difference in current back from the 2 hot legs. If you have a 100 amp service and one leg is at 60 amp and the other is at
40 amp then the neutral is 20 amps. If both legs are equal the current in the neutral cancels out to 0 amps etc.The 2 legs are not really 2 phases but rather 2 poles that are derived, by a center tapped transformer, from ONE the 3 phases that come from the power generation plant. The center tap being the neutral and grounded so it is at a 0V reference.
Kevin
According to Robert11 :
Neither. John Grabowski's response is correct, but I thought I'd amplify.
The technically correct term for the "neutral" in the house wiring, and the "non-hot" wire that comes from the street is "grounded conductor" - the conductor is groundED (at the panel).
The technically correct term for the bare wire in house wiring is "grounding conductor" it provides the groundING for a circuit.
Pedantically speaking, the term "neutral" can only be applied to the center conductor on a multi-phase circuit (eg: three phase).
However, through common usage in the trade and elsewhere, "neutral" has come to be synonymous with "grounded conductor" and "ground"/"ground wire" synonymous for "grounding conductor".
You'll occasionally see people use the "more-correct" terms here - usually confuses people. You'll impress the inspector if you use them ;-)
Black wire Neutral, Negative, -, Ground (This is the basically the negative end of the circuit)
White wire Positive, Hot, + (This is basically the Positive end of the circuit, and is the one that comes from the breakers)
No insulation or green insulation Ground, Case Ground (This is there to give the hot wire something easy to touch so that it will blow a breaker instead of laying there like a trap waiting for you to touch it, and is electrically the same as the Black Wire when you test it with your meter.)
Be sure that all your plugs are wired the same or you can get shocked by touching two cases at the same time that are plugged into two different plugs.
According to CanopyCo :
You have your colour codes precisely backwards. Black is hot. White is neutral.
In AC housewiring, "negative", "-", "positive" and "+" are simply wrong. It's AC, remember?
IMHO, it is a grounded [service] conductor. Notice the -ed suffix; it is important. I put service in brackets because you can usually leave that word out.
Bob
It's confusing because a neutral wire is not required to be insulated when ran overhead. A true neutral carries the difference in current between TWO out of phase hot legs of a single phase system or TWO or more phases of a 3 phase system. The neutral also maintains a balanced voltage. That's why when there is a bad neutral connection in a house that some lights will be dim and others will be bright.
In a house in a circuit that has a black, white, and bare wire in a romex cable, the white wire is technically _not_ a neutral wire since it does not carry the difference in current between two circuits. HOWEVER in the trade, to avoid confusion, any white or gray wire is called a "neutral", and any bare or green wire is called a "ground".
The "ground", as electrician's would say, is technically the grounding conductor; more specifically, the equipment grounding conductor.
If that isn't confusing enough we can throw in the term "bonding" :-)
There are hundreds of web sites that discuss this subject. For example:
Believe that at your own risk. Black is hot. Maybe you're getting it confused with DC (as in a car).
That is, black wire (hot) to the shorter slot and white wire (neutral) to the longer slot.
confusing you further is possible. The bare wire from the utility is a grounded conductor, not necessarily a neutral and has nothing to do with your house wiring terminology. The utility works on a different set of rules and regs.
Where I live the bare conductor in the service drop is called the "messenger wire" or sometimes the 'static' wire. It is usually steel or steel core surrounded by AL. Much stronger than the "conductors" that are insulated.
Bzzzt! Sorry, but thanks for playing. That's exactly backwards. Hope you don't try to do your own AC wiring...
FYI: May be no longer OK to ground to a water pipe in many locations now. I prefer to only use ground rods anyway.
Even though the neutral conductor on the entrance cable is grounded, that means is at ground potential but will carry current difference between the two hot legs. When suspended can be bare, others are insulated as so can be twisted together and not short. Buried lines have all conductors insulated.
The subject has been well covered but the term "neutral" was and is used by people in the electrical trade (electricians, linemen, engineers, writers, etc.) to refer to a grounded conductor, whether it is a center-tap or end connection. This usage basically means "not hot", or relatively safe.
Don Young
Correction: if a building has metal water pipes, it is a Code requirement (and has been, for some time) that the metal water pipes be bonded to the building's grounding electrode system. The Code prohibits using metal water piping as the *only* grounding electrode.
Figures. Looks like I have them backwards.
Anyone have a web cite that would show the correct wiring? I got my information form a web cite that had a picture of a plug. I still have the pic as a file to refer back to.
No matter how you wire it, it has to be the same as what is already there. If they have it backward, then you better stick with there wiring code or you will get shocked.
And as to + & - in AC, it is simply a better way to keep track of what is going on.
You have to have a completed circuit to do anything (a + & -) and thinking of it this way helps keep things simple.
Much to hard for most people to grasp that that one wire is a + 30 times a second, and a - 30 times a second.
Which in clear but imprecise terms, means that the the piping has to be CONNECTED to the grounding system, but shouldn't be used as PART of it. You connect the pipes to ground, but you don't ground to the pipes.
If the incoming underground water pipes are metal, one most certainly grounds the electric system "to the pipes". In fact NEC requires that underground metal water pipes (buried at least 20 ft.) be used as the primary grounding electrode when available.
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