Romex Colors

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zcanyonboltz

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Does anyone know around what year romex changed from black to white sheathing? I know in 2001 ish when I was a second year apprentice 12 became yellow and 10 orange. 8 and 6 were black. I see a lot of black romex in remodel, not just the 1940s "rag wire" but modern style black sheathed romex. Im asking because its nice to kind of date when the house was worked on before, especially some houses that have been remodeled multiple times. I see some with knob and tube, rag wire, AC cable with no ground, black and white romex, aluminum, all in the same house so I thinks its cool to know time era of old work I'm working on. Thanks
 
Back then, I believe it was manufactures own choice of color. Then they standardized the color for making it easier for inspectors. Seems like it was in the 70's.
 
A lot of what I have seen with older cable (say 12-2) with black sheath also was from times when it was common to see reduced size EGC. So I'd say 1960's maybe some in early 70's at latest. Some was a kind of gray color as well. I think that was just somewhat a brand thing and not something universal back then.

When they went with the colors that are basically the same regardless of manufacturer that we have today, black sheath is generally anything larger than 10 AWG.
 
hillbilly1 said:
Seems like I used some of that when I wired my dads house in the late 70's, so that would put the timeline in the 70's then.
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Seems 12-3 or 14-3 was common to have black sheath around that time but two conductor seemed to usually be white sheathed. When you got to mid to late 90's they were still white but were usually thinner sheath plus they had THHN equivalent conductors inside. A 14-2 looked too small to be 14-2 to those that had run a lot of older NM cable.
 
I've seen pre-standardized NM in black, brown, lt. blue, gray, yellow, off-white, and white. #14 used to be thicker than #12 is now.

What I hate now is that both #8 and #6, the numbers themselves almost identical, and hardest to tell apart, are the same color! :mad:
 
I've seen 14-2 brown before, but it didn't come from the factory that way, somebody wired a 4500 watt water heater with it. Building was about a year old. Original call was for outlets shorting out, someone used shallow cut in boxes (1 1/2" deep) on block walls with furring strips. Funny thing it was an insurance office, and close to burning down!
 
hillbilly1 said:
I've seen 14-2 brown before, but it didn't come from the factory that way, somebody wired a 4500 watt water heater with it. Building was about a year old. Original call was for outlets shorting out, someone used shallow cut in boxes (1 1/2" deep) on block walls with furring strips. Funny thing it was an insurance office, and close to burning down!
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Don't worry... they're covered. :p
 
Black sheath for all sizes was common in the early 80s. It varied by manufacturer.

The color code that is commonly used now is not required by any standard. There is no reason a manufacturer can't make 14 with a yellow jacket :)
 
don_resqcapt19 said:
Black sheath for all sizes was common in the early 80s. It varied by manufacturer.

The color code that is commonly used now is not required by any standard. There is no reason a manufacturer can't make 14 with a yellow jacket :)
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Yes, just one of those things where one manufacturer started doing it and advertising what they were doing. I remember seeing ads, probably in trade magazines. Next thing you seen was all manufacturers were doing it to the same color codes and there was no listing or code requirement to make them do so.
 
kwired said:
Yes, just one of those things where one manufacturer started doing it and advertising what they were doing. I remember seeing ads, probably in trade magazines. Next thing you seen was all manufacturers were doing it to the same color codes and there was no listing or code requirement to make them do so.
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But if I was a fly by night contractor, I just might order 14 with a yellow jacket...everyone will see yellow and know it is 12 :)
 
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