Electrical wiring colors
Posted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 2:50 pm
A typical residential dwelling will use romex cable. The wire colors will be White(neutral), Green(ground), and black(hot maybe), and red(hot maybe).
3 conductor(with ground) will be white/black.red/bare.
The reason for the 'maybes' above, is that switch/lamp fixture can be switched, and therefore not 'always' hot. Ground and neutral wiring is 'always' directly connected to ground and neutral(NEVER switched[in the structure wiring]).
There are occasions where two and three conductor cable will be used with the white wire something other than neutral. In that case, the white wire must(should) be marked to distinguish it from an 'identified neutral conductor(white wire).
Now when conduit is used, fergit all the above except for the green.barew and white conductors.
Yellow and blue conductors are commonly used(as well as other colors like orange, brown...), but 'supply' conductor(those directly connected to the 'panel' should be white/green/black/red only.
Gets really fun when a 4 gang switch box contains a dozen or so wires, all the same color and none of them go directly to the panel!:D
As for Ed's pre-wired for door opener, I guess the lamp socket was used by the opener to provide interior lighting. More recent openers are self contained as described above, and the light is internal, and the power source is a line cord.
3 conductor(with ground) will be white/black.red/bare.
The reason for the 'maybes' above, is that switch/lamp fixture can be switched, and therefore not 'always' hot. Ground and neutral wiring is 'always' directly connected to ground and neutral(NEVER switched[in the structure wiring]).
There are occasions where two and three conductor cable will be used with the white wire something other than neutral. In that case, the white wire must(should) be marked to distinguish it from an 'identified neutral conductor(white wire).
Now when conduit is used, fergit all the above except for the green.barew and white conductors.
Yellow and blue conductors are commonly used(as well as other colors like orange, brown...), but 'supply' conductor(those directly connected to the 'panel' should be white/green/black/red only.
Gets really fun when a 4 gang switch box contains a dozen or so wires, all the same color and none of them go directly to the panel!:D
As for Ed's pre-wired for door opener, I guess the lamp socket was used by the opener to provide interior lighting. More recent openers are self contained as described above, and the light is internal, and the power source is a line cord.