in what world is this the neutral?

[kwired]

I ran into the same issue once; i didn't get shocked, but the homeowner had rewired the house using black as the neutral. he worked for an industrial battery manufacturer; all he knew was black is the negative.

Why should you have been shocked? Other than a misuse of the colors as required by NEC it should still work the same. The voltage and current do not care what color the insulation of the conductor is. It is for our benefit of identification.

if they had connected the white to a phase, it would've energized the grounding system, including all of my cabinets and the plumbing.

exactly. most POCO around here know what the white is for when marked by electricians although they do mark phases with white for identifying rotation because their rotation meters have a white lead. Mine does too I just do not mark that lead with a white marker. Anything besides red or blue must be the white lead.

Most POCO around here when connecting a service - especially if live, will use ohmmeter to verify there is no faults or cross overs in parallel conductors they also in this process will realize the one that has continuity to ground is the grounded conductor regardless of any markings it may have.

 

[brantmacga]

Why should you have been shocked? Other than a misuse of the colors as required by NEC it should still work the same. The voltage and current do not care what color the insulation of the conductor is. It is for our benefit of identification..

because the person i was replying to said they were shocked in a similar install; just pointing out that i was not.

 

[jmellc]

So what happened to brown-orange-yellow?

Still around, but BOY is for 480 V & higher, grey for neutral. Orange would still be used for a high leg of 240 Delta.