Lighting Wire Colours

Basic wire color coding.

Lighting wire colours.

Electrical wiring is an electrical installation of cabling and associated devices such as switches distribution boards sockets and light fittings in a structure. Since 2006 british law dictates that the colours mentioned above must be used in all new electricity installations. What 12 different electrical wire colors actually mean wiring a light fixture or new appliance. Wiring is subject to safety standards for design and installation.

Allowable wire and cable types and sizes are specified according to the circuit operating voltage and electric current capability with further restrictions on the. When those labels use printed text they should use high contrast and durable print. It s important that properties get their wiring checked to see if the wiring colours are out of date have deteriorated over time and to check if they comply with bs 7671 wiring. Ground white or grey.

Cable colours cables harmonised cable colours wire colours old lighting circuit cable colours unharmonised if the wiring in your house is older than the 31st march 2004 and hasn t been modified you will have the following old cable core colours used in your lighting circuits. Brown this is the live wire. Strip the wire and stick it in a hole teeth inside hold the wire. Negative non ground black.

Jun 4 2012 4 the op may be done with this thread or not but i have to correct the color codes posted above by ericloewe. Aug 12 2007 17 0 66. The standard dc colours are as follows. There is a chance that if your house has these old wiring colours the switch drops may be from a loop in loop out radial lighting circuit done with junction boxes rather than ceiling roses as shown in fig 2.

Any electronic wiring in a uk home features three colours of wiring which are used for three different functions. Finally there are the direct current dc power wire colours commonly featured in solar and battery power systems. The switch wiring is all the same but the switch wire cable c leads up to a different set up. Blue this is the neutral wire.

Don t be confused by the number of electrical wire colors you find we ve got just the. Positive non ground red. Ground green green with yellow stripes or bare wire. New vs old wiring colours.

Take apart an already installed fixture. Whatever marking system is used for the cables and wires in your facility the markings should be durable enough to last as long as the wires themselves. A simple standard electrical circuit has a black or red hot wire that carries power from the power source to the device e g switch fixture outlet appliance a white neutral wire that carries the power back to the power source and a green or bare copper ground wire that connects the device to the home s grounding system.