Red tape on white wire?

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ggunn

PE (Electrical), NABCEP certified
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Austin, TX, USA
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Consulting Electrical Engineer - Photovoltaic Systems
Something I have seen several times lately is a white wire with red marking tape connected to a breaker in a panel. Is that NEC compliant? I didn't think you could do that.
 
ggunn said:
Something I have seen several times lately is a white wire with red marking tape connected to a breaker in a panel. Is that NEC compliant? I didn't think you could do that.
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If the circuit is in a raceway you cannot use a white wire as a hot even if you tape it another color.


If the circuit is in cable or cord you are allowed to use the white as a hot but are required to mark it at at both ends.
 
iwire said:
If the circuit is in a raceway you cannot use a white wire as a hot even if you tape it another color.

If the circuit is in cable or cord you are allowed to use the white as a hot but are required to mark it at at both ends.
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And any access points along the run.
 
In a facility that my company rented for a while, the service was corner ground delta, and the existing wiring used white with red tape for the grounded circuit conductor.

I don't know if this was compliant, but it did make it clear that this was a grounded conductor used like a 'hot' :)

-Jon
 
winnie said:
In a facility that my company rented for a while, the service was corner ground delta, and the existing wiring used white with red tape for the grounded circuit conductor.

I don't know if this was compliant, but it did make it clear that this was a grounded conductor used like a 'hot' :)

-Jon
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That conductor is required to be white and it is no more of a "grounded conductor used like a hot" than is a neutral of a wye system.
 
iwire said:
If the circuit is in a raceway you cannot use a white wire as a hot even if you tape it another color.


If the circuit is in cable or cord you are allowed to use the white as a hot but are required to mark it at at both ends.
Click to expand...
What about in the walls of a house? That's where I am seeing it (in residential panelboards).
 
iwire said:
It's a cable 480, if you mark both ends if it you have accomplished this. Unless you install pull points in cables. :p
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That's what threw me off.
Evidently there are different views of "Both Ends".

I was thinking both ends of the cable regardless of how many ends that would be between points A & B. Basically anywhere the outer jacket is removed.

Not just the very ends of the run.


JAP>
 
The grounded conductor is a grounded wire "used like a hot" only in the sense that it can go to one of the terminals of a three phase motor and it is part of the phase rotation. The latter is one argument for putting an indicator tape on it, but I suspect it is still non-compliant.
If the other two wires are indicated black and blue you can deduce that the white is the "red" phase line.
 
GoldDigger said:
The grounded conductor is a grounded wire "used like a hot" only in the sense that it can go to one of the terminals of a delta connected motor and it is part of the phase rotation. The latter is one argument for putting an indicator tape on it, but I suspect it is still non-compliant.
If the other two wires are indicated black and blue you can deduce that the white is the "red" phase line.
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:huh:
 
GoldDigger said:
The grounded conductor is a grounded wire "used like a hot" only in the sense that it can go to one of the terminals of a three phase motor and it is part of the phase rotation. The latter is one argument for putting an indicator tape on it, but I suspect it is still non-compliant.
If the other two wires are indicated black and blue you can deduce that the white is the "red" phase line.
Click to expand...
I am talking about single phase residential panels.
 
Out of habit they probably think of 2 ungrounded legs of a single phase panel as colors Black for A phase and Red for B Phase.
Seeing as how one of the conductors in 12/2 is already black, that's probably why they're taping the white wire Red for the 2nd phase of a 240v branch circuit.

At least that's my best guess anyway.

JAP>
 
480sparky said:
Sorry. I guess you've never installed splice boxes in cable runs.
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Once the sheath is removed from the cable, you must either make a compliant cable termination or re-sheath the cable. In this vain, a cable will always have two ends and no exposed conductors in between ends.
 
Smart $ said:
Once the sheath is removed from the cable, you must either make a compliant cable termination or re-sheath the cable. In this vain, a cable will always have two ends and no exposed conductors in between ends.
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Are you saying
If I pull a NM cable from point A to point B and in the middle of the run I bend the cable in half but don't cut it and shove it into a single gang box for a future outlet then go back and strip the outside sheath off of the NM in that box but don't cut the wires that I have to re sheath it or I've created a code violation if I don't terminate?

Or leave a stripped NM folded up but not terminated in a panel?


JAP
 
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