testing power points

[scubabob]

a "friend of mine" has changed a couple of power points in his house to newer, prettier ones and one of them had different coloured wires and he's not sure if he has put them in correctly.

there is a red wire, presumably active, a green/yellow wire and a bare wire. he has assumed that the bare wire is earth and connected it up to that, the red one to live and the green/yellow to neutral. He hasn't used it yet and isnt game to. is there a way to test if its done properly?

[Terrian]

Dick Smith use to sell a tester, plug it in, tells you if you have the wired the right way around, if wrong, what is wrong.

also this appear to be pretty much the same sort of tester

[bricks]

In my opinion the plug is wired up incorrectly and is extreamly dangerous. I wouldn't use any switch or plug connected to it anywhere in your house.

Call a sparky and slap your mate.

[scubabob]

i agree bricks, when he spoke to me i suggested he tape it up lest anyone uses it. i have a mate who's a sparky, i'll get him onto the case. THanks guys

[nev25]

Call a sparky and slap your mate.

I agree

Scubabob by what you have said it sounds to me that there has been some illegally wiring done in the past and it had maybe been wire incorrectly.

Definitely get a sparkie in and get him to look at the whole wiring system.

Then again if your mate has done some electrical work himself you may not get a sparkie to touch it.

[another termite]

The green/yellow wire is supposed to be the earth and it is illegal to use it as anything else. Sounds like a case of the home handyman electrician to me and definatly needs to be checked by someone qualified. The neutral should not be bare and in some cases can give just as good a shock as the active. Seek help but be prepared to pay for someone to check it all out very few will only check that and then walk away.

[rrich]

My first thought was the the green w/yellow wire is an earth wire. This was confirmed by a previous post by Another Termite.

Here in the US, bare wires have been used for earthing purposes, however a green insulated wire is the preferred practice. The delema is what is with the bare wire?

What I think has happened is that somebody worked on the power point in the past and managed to remove the insulation from the wire. My guess is that the bare wire is actually the neutral wire and not the earth wire. This may have surrived only because neutral and earth are typically at the same potential. (That is just a fancy way of saying that the neutral and earth circuits (while parallel wires) to the power point are connected to each other at the main or entrance box.)

Based upon what others have said and your laws, you really need a sparky. I suspect that the repair may be very ugly by the time it is done. An entire new cable may have to be run to the power point. The bare wire needs to be spliced to an insulated one using the neutral colour code. The splice MUST be done inside a junction box (JB is a US term) and if there is not enough insulated wire on the bare wire the problem just gets bigger.

[thatirwinfella]

actually, it may not be as big a deal for the sparkie as rrich suggests. running a new cable inside an existing wall is made easier by the fact that you have a draw wire already inside. if i was doing the job.. look for where the cable originates, tie the new to the old and pull. but if there are several points off this, or there is a hidden j-box, rrich is right, it will get ugly.

but yes, you do have a major problem with the bare and yellow/green wires. bare used to be the earth standard, but now green/yellow is.

[another termite]

rrich may have a point on the neutral wire thing if there is some slack in the wall (a rare thing these days with the price of copper) pull it out and cut it off... maybe the neutral (black) insulation has just been pulled off... of course this still needs to be done by a licensed electrician... insert usual disclaimers here..... i have yet to come across a cable that has a green yellow and a bare copper cable, anyone out there seen this?

[scubabob]

Thanks for all your help guys. A sparky friend of mine (real sparky with initials and everything) is coming round to check it out.

[manoftalent]

seriously slap several times the fool that left that wire bare .....and your mate is lucky he has a roof over his head ....

[rrich]

... maybe the neutral (black) insulation has just been pulled off...

Interesting, your colour code for neutral is black. If I looked at the power point I really would have been confused! Confused enough to ring up a sparky.

[Iain]

It used to be red active, black neutral and green earth, that was many moons ago but some aplliances still have the original wiring.

[chrisp]

It used to be red active, black neutral and green earth, that was many moons ago but some aplliances still have the original wiring.

And it still is - on the rear side of the power point

To make things really confusing on the "appliance" side of the wiring, I recall there was a very old European(?) standard that used red for the Earth. I've only ever seen one or two appliance wired internally with red for earth. It often pays to assume nothing and always check - especially with earthed appliances when replacing the plugs.

[Ausyuppy]

Rrich,
The standard here in Oz is as follows;
House internal wiring:
Red = active
Black = neutral
Green/yellow = Earth. (Older houses tend to have a bare earth wire that the sparkies used to put a green sleeve over)

Appliances are usually wired;
brown = active
blue = neutral
Green/yellow = earth.

Completely the opposite as you guys with the white as neutral and the black as active.

Cheers
Steve