1. Heads up. Apparently the bots who comment names to try and see the personal info are now just straight up saying random numbers and addresses, which if true, lends credence to the theory that they're trying to find personally identifiable information about the TH-cam channel. I can't confirm it because I don't think I've seen them comment street names, just people names. 2. Do you do research on these topics or do you just know these or worked as an electrician or handyman? How do you know all this info, from gardening to electrical, etc.
14/2 w/ground, 12/2 w/ground, 12/3 w/ground, Etc. is Romex nomenclature just a little fyi for you. i have a 1000ft reel of 14/2 with no ground that is topped with tempered glass as my coffee table. Has about 300 or so feet left and the story is my uncle is a commercial master electrician and he left it at my dads house in 95/96. dad was going to scrap it in 2002 but I said id use it as a coffee table in my first home. almost everyone loves it.
ROMEX got the trade name from Rome, NY where it was first produced. Rome, NY is known as the "Copper City" because it had copper mills for making wires and Revere copper cookware.
@@vincentstragier6628 It's not about respecting the code.. If everyone was allowed to do their own work, to code, that would be fine. But people aren't even allowed to work on their own homes in some places!
I feel like instead of using a different color for the 3s they should have used the same color but stripped. Having a color represent a combination of two different concepts is mentally more difficult for humans than color representing a single concept and strips representing another concept. Although, I'm sure they chose just to use colors only because adding strips would make the manufacturing process more expensive.
Striped wire has been in wide use in other applications for decades. A striped wire would really stand out without being gaudy. The stripe could also indicate the color of the traveler wire. Oh well, what's done is done. Great, to the point video!
Striped wire is fundamentally different to make. The plastic is injected around the conductors in a continuous process. Changing to a different single colour just means loading in different plastic. Stripes would require a whole new machine and process.
With all the homes starting to have solar, generators, and backup circuits, it seams to me some type of indicator would be helpful, too. As to striping the outside, as long as it's a longitudinal stripe, I can see how that will be helpful (especially considering the line above) because in an enclosure only an inch or so of outer jacket will be visible, and that's where the additional identification will be important.
Nice job! Especially with your on-camera work: You look very confident and comfortable and natural facing the camera, which is not easy. Thanks for another great video.
At least some companies have been printing manufactured dates for quite a while. It was one of the ways I figured out which circuits were run several years after our house was originally built during one of the early homeowner remodels.
I'm glad they kept the common ones like 12/2 the same. I've been rewiring my house slowly so by keeping the 2 conductor wire colors the same that means my house won't be some weird hybrid caught in the middle of a major industry change
@someonerandom704 I'm sure there's a few things I've done wrong like improper stapling or whatever. But when it comes to critical stuff I've been doing my best to either research it myself or I talk to my buddy that's an electrician. The work I've done so far is 100 times better than some of the sketchy crap I've found. The original work was done well for the time but any electrical tape and the fabric wire coating is all degraded. The diy stuff that was done was anywhere from poorly done to 1 step away from a fire hazard. One example was a 14g wire ran off a 20 amp breaker and that's one of the less sketchy things. Almost no junction box has a cover, some wires were ran into the box through the cover opening and only twisted and taped.
Manufacturer's putting dates in cables is a big reason theres a market for old cable. People will buy it up, sit on it for years and sell it for a marked up price to people looking to do home renovations.
Can't really mark it up too much though - if the wire is so expensive that it's suddenly worth pulling a permit then the market for the old wire goes away.
Manufacturing Dates many times have been on NM cables for 20-30 years. I have beeen an electrician for 2 decades and all of Southwire Romex cable jackets have had dates. Even MC (Metal Clad) cable has inside clear ribbon manufacturing dates and wording on the inside ran with the conductors. Great video. I think it was Canada who first started using these colors many years ago. I would see the blue and pink NM cables in videos and found out that is what they would require up there. Im from Florida.😊 Im an electrician in a hospital. We use AC cable all the time. Similar to MC cable snd it has a green jacket. It show that it is Healthcare Rated. We can use it in a Healthcare Facility then. 😅 Great video. God bless. Jeff - Sunny Central Florida ☀️🙏
Lol yes the blue NM was to identify afci for bedroom circuits. There is some of that NM with 2pair and a bare... for gfi recepticals? Idk two circuits, because no neutral sharing... it makes the combos trip😂.
Prior to 2024, the color was up to the manufacturer. I believe it is not in the NEC yet and is just a manufacturing thing. I had installed a baby blue 12 AWG in my house in the late 1980s. If you have a house built before 2024, do not trust the wire color without verifying the actual wire gauge. Color standardization did start until the 1990s on some wire gauges. Be careful.
You can also buy a 14-2-2 wire that has 4 conductors (black, red, and 2 whites) and a ground. The jacket is white. 12-2-2 is also available and is yellow. Great for running 2 arc fault circuits together.
I've seen customers get busted using new wire and claiming an old project a few times now. I might just buy up a few rolls and sit on them for when I do projects in my own house now!
Thanks. I was wondering why all the Romex in my house was white, regardless of whether it was a 15A or 20A circuit. I had thought they had messed up, but now I see that it's simply that the wiring predates the introduction of yellow (just barely). Thanks!
I work as a residential electrician. The first time I’ve seen blue 14/3 romex cable at our shop was last month. We are still going though our previous pallet of white 14/3. We have been using pink 10/3 for many months now but the brand we use is different from that shown in this videos.
A striped jacket indicating x/3 would have been better than 10,000 different colors. Thanks for the video. As a DIYer I saw the blue at Home Depot and thought they were just trying to differentiate from Lowes or something. Was only wiring up a closet light, so didn't investigate further.
It can also help to identify 240V circuits, and feeder circuits with a shared neutral, as being something different than the ordinary outlet/light circuit runs...
You can do 2 conductor for a switch, you just need to feed the switch then the light. You also only need one switch in a lighting circuit to have a neutral, so the 2nd switch on a 3 way can be line, traveler, and switched hot and not need a neutral.
Remember there are many exceptions to the nuetral in a switchbox rule. anything with conduit, and if more than one switch controls a light and the boxes are within sight of eachother, only one needs a neutral
@foogod4237 unless it's a 2 wire 240! Although that is less common in modern appliances, i still haven't seen a 240 water heater with a nuetral and I would assume that would be the case unless you have some fancy water heater with built in electronics like a screen or wifi
@@billrobert3226 Older appliances used 120V for lights, motors, timers and controls. With LED lighting, inverter-driven motors and world-compatible electronic controls is is easy to foresee a day when there won't be a need for a neutral on the dryer and range circuits either.
That date thing on the wires was awesome. I am retired now, but cannot even tell you the amount of times I busted people for work without permit in the 20 years I was an Inspector. Now don't get all in a huff about those damn inspectors. If I saw it and it looked like a really nice installation, I may just pretend I did not see it. But when it was pretty ugly, rip it all out and do it properly.
@@FireHazardMan103 Oversizing is allowed, but not typically done for cost reasons. I asked for our feeder wires to be oversized because the design temperature at the target current for the standard size is 90C. But the power meter was only rated for 65C. I actually derived rule 4-0006 of the Canadian electrical code by noticing that some electrical tape had two separate temperature ratings from two different standards bodies. (Forget the exact steps: but that rule points out that you can't design for 90C if your terminals are only rated for 75C (default if not otherwise marked)).
Of all the products I use, wire is so important. I just messed with some 40 year old outdoor boxes, and having the wire still be pliable and not fall apart shows how important the quality of this stuff is.
Watching the occasional UK electrician installing wiring... yeah it's radically different in Europe (and UK being a little different from other mainland European electrical requirements). you guys pull wires through mostly plastic conduits, we have preformed wires with the protective sheathing (mostly plastic). Our fuse panels are also radically different from how they look and are installed compared to Europe.
Your content is always interesting and relevant. I as wondering, haven't they come out with 16/2, for lighting circuits? I thought I saw a video a few months ago, but the 16awg romex wasn't fully approved yet. I could be mistaken.
Used the pink 10-3 to run a new dryer line at my grandparents house recently. I was pretty confused initially when I went to Lowe's to pick up some wire haha. Didn't know they changed color until I googled it.
I appreciate coming across your video. I will be doing a new house build in about six months and it never occurred to me. That yellow was for 12 gauge. I am specifying 20 amp circuit solved throughout the house and I wanna make sure that that is what happens.
Micrometers are way to fiddly. I just use a milliohm meter, a tape measure, and a calculator. A regular ohm meter has two test leads with one conductor each. They suffer because they have to subtract out the resistance of the test lead itself. A milliohm meter runs a known current through one conductor to each test probe and has a sense wire to measure the voltage at the test probe. These are sometimes called 4 wire meters. The fancy versions let you choose the test current, so you can overwhelm noise from magnetic or capacitive coupling, or use a wee tiny current if something sensitive might come in contact with the conductor under test. Oh wait, that's for testing traces on printed circuit boards. For house wiring, I look at the color, read the label, or compare the wire to a known sample. It's a good thing I only do wiring on my own property.
Or you can just try to bend it. You cannot possibly confuse the two then, as 14ga is soooo much more flexible it's not even funny. As an amateur, when working with 12ga wire for switches or receptacles, I almost dread stuffing the excess into the box while closing it up. Whereas with 14ga it's simply never an issue.
Believe it or not, this color coding was not something mandated by the NEC. It was something the NM cable manufacturers came up with. Well, I think Southwire did it first, then other manufacturers copied them.
The metal jacketed cable is typically called MC Cable. BX Cable is generally old cable without a ground. They were permitted to use the jacket of the cable as a ground. That is no longer allowed and all MC Cable contains a ground wire.
Hola 👋 señor Silver Cymbal 👋😃👋that was a great video very informative and for a minute what I thought when I saw the pink wire I thought the lgtv is sticking its nose in the electrical industry now 😩😫that’ll stink to deal with that but fortunately it’s all for identification only thank you for the information keep up the great content…Saludos!!!👋😃👋
In Spain they are black or white for normal and then the green is for halogen free and orange for fire resistance. The wire size is printed or engraved in the insulation in mm²
Cool video, thanks. I didn't know about the colors past yellow. Even just 4 years ago in 2020 I bought a bit of 12/3 that was still in the yellow sheathe.
Cat 5 with power! Cctv did a PoE system on cat5 12v would definitely smoke the rj45 plugs..😂. Led lighting .... probably 20 or 25 bulbs... and at that number I don't think that 10 Amp would trip....😮 😅 imo 14awg is small enough 😅😅...
I just ran a hundred feet of 6/2.... which is now Black... Black used to be the color for 12/2 before yellow. I mined out about 400ft of old Black 12/2 from my house when I moved an illegal sub-panel from a closet. 12/3 direct bury is grey.
@@ramoselthat cable has green letters on it. Midnight black, that jacket is tougher than that Gray uf bullshit... but it says NM... some had a 16 awg bare egc on 12/2 w ground... that little 16awg would glow before the zinscos would trip..😂 😂
if we keep in mind that the electric code is the minimum you're supposed to use. just make sure you're the next size wire up. work very neatly. make sure you do everything in the box exactly perfect. follow the code.
@soundspark exactly and if you don't know how long the run is for alternating current and direct current is twice as much resistance. the length of the wire run from the breaker box to the load is critical. you can't run 18 gauge 300 ft and expected run a welder..
I want to know more about changes to the actual AWG measurement...I have 14 AWG in white Romex jacketing throughout my 1975 house, but it seems like it's actually 12 AWG because of how stiff and durable it is. When I buy new White-Romex 14 AWG..it's extremely easy to work with and bends very very easily. Did they actually thin out 14 AWG while still being able to call it 14 AWG?
@@jrheritathe older wire is stiffer, and the new is softer to work with... noticed the other day, a 50a range cord....2 # 8 and a pair of # 10 they used to be #10 on the 30a dryer plug... and #6 was what the stove took. 😮
Home Depot garden employee here, this explains quite a bit for when I have to help out in electrical! ...Still confused as to _why_ they don't count the ground wire in the number of conductors...
Because it's not a CURRENT CARRYING conductor. It's only the ground (safety) so it should never normally be carrying current. Some manufacturers do say 14/3 w/ ground for instance. But originally the cables had no ground and were called whatever gauge/2 or /3. So when they added the ground they didn't change the name because that would confuse everyone buying wire.
Because you can't use it for anything except grounding. A 12/2 wire can have a neutral and hot for 120V circuits, or two hots for 240V. You can't use the ground wire, for example, as a neutral to add a 120V outlet off of a 240V one.
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Honestly im surprised color coding wasn't a thing since the beginning. Dating also makes since. For example if a particular wire manufactured on a particular date was flawed we wouldn't have any way to know prior to dating. For example if a wire failed in 5 years causing fires. Investigating that would be difficult.
Didn't they also add "foot" markers to make it easier to know how much cable you had without having to measure? I have seen it on some kinds of cables but no sure it is on all NMC yet.
All those new colors may be available but only for special order. My Home Depot only has the old tried & true White-Grey-Black & Yellow on the shelf. !
A strange thing I just realized.... yellow wire here has two conductors that are 12 gauge.... but the ground is 14 for some reason. Yours seems to be 12 for all three.
Ha, that cable that you called "pink" is actually sheathed with _red._ Look, it's almost same shade as the individual insulator on the traveler wire: RED. That one that you called "purple" might be purple all right, but it's actually closer to pink than that one that you _called_ "pink."
I would imagine that if an inspector is there to approve wiring, it won't matter *when* it was installed since it's still your house the wiring is installed in. I suppose a homeowner could spray paint the cable and make the inspector get a set of calipers to measure the wire gauge.
BX is code defined, not sometimes called BX. Re the colored NM , I would have preferred that they added two black tracers to the white, yellow, and orange rather than coming up with three new colors. That would have left the other colors for future uses. And frankly if a person doesn’t know why they would use 12-3 instead of 12-2, they probably shouldn’t be doing electrical, beyond replace in kind.
I bought and new custom home in 2010 and I noticed that all the wire was yellow except for heavier gauge wire. They had wired the entire house without any 15amp circuits. I never blew a breaker in that home.
North America: Romex just got colour-coded and it comes in funny sizes. Europe: NYM-J or NYY? 1 phase or three phase? 1,5 mm² or 2,5 mm² conductor cross-section? With these options, we'll have >95% of residential installations covered.
Sorry but I have been an electrician since the 90s ( in Florida ) before me the Romex was black then before that it was clothe. Orange and yellow came out in the 2000s. All of this was done to make it easier for inspection and application.
@@SilverCymbal Evidently, that's why all our outlets are horizontal instead of vertical - easier to install that way with conduit, or so I've been told.
It would have been easier to have all wire gauges the same color but add a stripe or pattern to show a different number of a conductors. Like 14/2 is white, but 14/3 is still white with a blue stripe. 10/2 is orange, 10/3 is orange with a blue stripe. No stripe is always 2 plus ground, blue stripe is always 3 + ground, black strips would be 4 + ground no matter the gauge...
Shows a picture of type "MC" cable; calls it "BX" cable. 😅 While both BX and MC are "armored cables", BX has a steel outer sheath, while MC sports an aluminum outer sheath. There is a difference. The "Romex" was the name of the original NM cable, trademarked by the Rome Wire and Cable Company, of Rome, NY. Subsequently, other companies also began producing type NM cable, but the "Romex" name stuck to all of them. The "Southwire Corporation" bought the Romex name in the mid-2000's, and currently owns the trademark for it's use on their NM products. But it's always gonna be called Romex!
Can someone explain to me -- do Americans only have one wire manufacturer to the whole country? Here in Eastern Europe we have a bazilion of different brands, colors, etc, you can use whatever you want, it's all up to you.
In the US there are 2 major brands for the sort of NM household wiring he's talking about here, Southwire (with their RomexⓇ trademark) and Cerrowire. He mentions both, in passing, in the video.
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Thank you for watching - Hope you found this interesting!
1. Heads up. Apparently the bots who comment names to try and see the personal info are now just straight up saying random numbers and addresses, which if true, lends credence to the theory that they're trying to find personally identifiable information about the TH-cam channel. I can't confirm it because I don't think I've seen them comment street names, just people names.
2. Do you do research on these topics or do you just know these or worked as an electrician or handyman? How do you know all this info, from gardening to electrical, etc.
14/2 w/ground, 12/2 w/ground, 12/3 w/ground, Etc. is Romex nomenclature just a little fyi for you. i have a 1000ft reel of 14/2 with no ground that is topped with tempered glass as my coffee table. Has about 300 or so feet left and the story is my uncle is a commercial master electrician and he left it at my dads house in 95/96. dad was going to scrap it in 2002 but I said id use it as a coffee table in my first home. almost everyone loves it.
Noted - only use wire dated 10+ years old before doing my illegal DIY projects 🤣
A new market for thieves stealing copper from houses. Selling old dated wire to DYI-ers.
Was going to say, gatta get out and buy me some wire, so that when I do have a project 6 years from now I'm already backdated 6 years.
@@tankerkiller125 I bought a 150 ft roll in 1989 when I bought the house. still have a bit left
Ha! Exactly! The only reason they do this is so an inspector can date the wire in your house and tell if you pulled a permit!
@@ggsmith48906 the new standard is for safety and more easier to understand
Good info. I am buying a roll of each size now, for all of my projects ten years from now
At least you’re young enough for that 😊
Eh just use mc lol
Might be a good idea as wire will probably cost 5 times as much then any way.
Richie Rich
ROMEX got the trade name from Rome, NY where it was first produced. Rome, NY is known as the "Copper City" because it had copper mills for making wires and Revere copper cookware.
And it's important because I have to pass through there when going up to the Adirondacks to get away for a month
I grew up in Rome and had no idea about the Romex connection. Thanks!
The key here is to go to garage sales and auctions and buy Old Wire with old dates. That way you're covered no matter what.
Or the respect the code...
I have a few thousand feet of NOS nm cable for just such a purpose. 😂
@@vincentstragier6628 It's not about respecting the code.. If everyone was allowed to do their own work, to code, that would be fine. But people aren't even allowed to work on their own homes in some places!
Or just use a wet cloth and some rubbing.
@@FireHazardMan103name is fitting for the advise.
I feel like instead of using a different color for the 3s they should have used the same color but stripped. Having a color represent a combination of two different concepts is mentally more difficult for humans than color representing a single concept and strips representing another concept. Although, I'm sure they chose just to use colors only because adding strips would make the manufacturing process more expensive.
I was just thinking the same thing.
Striped wire has been in wide use in other applications for decades. A striped wire would really stand out without being gaudy. The stripe could also indicate the color of the traveler wire. Oh well, what's done is done. Great, to the point video!
Striped wire is fundamentally different to make. The plastic is injected around the conductors in a continuous process.
Changing to a different single colour just means loading in different plastic.
Stripes would require a whole new machine and process.
With all the homes starting to have solar, generators, and backup circuits, it seams to me some type of indicator would be helpful, too.
As to striping the outside, as long as it's a longitudinal stripe, I can see how that will be helpful (especially considering the line above) because in an enclosure only an inch or so of outer jacket will be visible, and that's where the additional identification will be important.
@@l00k4tstuff wiring I've seen that used stripes usually use diagonal stripes, so that is what I was imagining.
Nice job! Especially with your on-camera work: You look very confident and comfortable and natural facing the camera, which is not easy. Thanks for another great video.
Thank you for the nice word,s I really appreciate it
I've been seeing some of these new colors at my local Menards, and wondered what was going on. Thanks as always for the great information!
Yep, same here. Wondered if it was some new "wokeness" stuff going on.
@@ChessIsJustAGamewoke is when you know your rights and how the government works, what are you on about?
Appreciate the information I've only ever seen Yellow & White Romex.
And gray for my flagpole lights
Oh yeah and I have orange on my water heater and my baseboard heaters on the porch
I have some pale blue 14/2 w/g from quite a while ago.
There's a pink wire that has 240 running through it to hook up my water heater. I don't know the rating on it. I should probably check it out😅
That has, been since 2001 and there is orange for #10 wire, but not used often except for a dryer perhaps.
At least some companies have been printing manufactured dates for quite a while. It was one of the ways I figured out which circuits were run several years after our house was originally built during one of the early homeowner remodels.
The trick with DIYing your own electrical is to do it right so if anyone questions you then you pull a permit to have it reviewed for after the fact
Which leads to a second point. Pay now for the experience, or pay later after one of the cheap contractors botches the job again
"Permit" implies that someone has the right to deny me to do what I have the right to do.
I'm glad they kept the common ones like 12/2 the same. I've been rewiring my house slowly so by keeping the 2 conductor wire colors the same that means my house won't be some weird hybrid caught in the middle of a major industry change
are you following the national electric code though?
@someonerandom704 I'm sure there's a few things I've done wrong like improper stapling or whatever. But when it comes to critical stuff I've been doing my best to either research it myself or I talk to my buddy that's an electrician. The work I've done so far is 100 times better than some of the sketchy crap I've found. The original work was done well for the time but any electrical tape and the fabric wire coating is all degraded. The diy stuff that was done was anywhere from poorly done to 1 step away from a fire hazard. One example was a 14g wire ran off a 20 amp breaker and that's one of the less sketchy things. Almost no junction box has a cover, some wires were ran into the box through the cover opening and only twisted and taped.
Manufacturer's putting dates in cables is a big reason theres a market for old cable. People will buy it up, sit on it for years and sell it for a marked up price to people looking to do home renovations.
Aint no way you have a source on that info
Source, experience. People tend to not write stuff down when they know they're trying to break the law.
Can't really mark it up too much though - if the wire is so expensive that it's suddenly worth pulling a permit then the market for the old wire goes away.
Manufacturing Dates many times have been on NM cables for 20-30 years. I have beeen an electrician for 2 decades and all of Southwire Romex cable jackets have had dates. Even MC (Metal Clad) cable has inside clear ribbon manufacturing dates and wording on the inside ran with the conductors. Great video. I think it was Canada who first started using these colors many years ago. I would see the blue and pink NM cables in videos and found out that is what they would require up there. Im from Florida.😊
Im an electrician in a hospital. We use AC cable all the time. Similar to MC cable snd it has a green jacket. It show that it is Healthcare Rated. We can use it in a Healthcare Facility then. 😅
Great video. God bless.
Jeff - Sunny Central Florida ☀️🙏
Lol yes the blue NM was to identify afci for bedroom circuits. There is some of that NM with 2pair and a bare... for gfi recepticals? Idk two circuits, because no neutral sharing... it makes the combos trip😂.
The US has been copying the Canadian Electrical Code CSA C22.1 Part 1 for years
Here's what not being able to pass inspection on diy work does: it makes it so people don't get inspected.
Prior to 2024, the color was up to the manufacturer. I believe it is not in the NEC yet and is just a manufacturing thing. I had installed a baby blue 12 AWG in my house in the late 1980s. If you have a house built before 2024, do not trust the wire color without verifying the actual wire gauge. Color standardization did start until the 1990s on some wire gauges. Be careful.
I just ran into this going to buy some 12/3 the other day. They’re charging roughly double for the fancy new purple coating. Neat.
Honestly this is really cool. Even the dated wire. I'm a fan of easily accessible transparency.
You can also buy a 14-2-2 wire that has 4 conductors (black, red, and 2 whites) and a ground. The jacket is white. 12-2-2 is also available and is yellow. Great for running 2 arc fault circuits together.
I've seen customers get busted using new wire and claiming an old project a few times now. I might just buy up a few rolls and sit on them for when I do projects in my own house now!
Thanks. I was wondering why all the Romex in my house was white, regardless of whether it was a 15A or 20A circuit. I had thought they had messed up, but now I see that it's simply that the wiring predates the introduction of yellow (just barely). Thanks!
I work as a residential electrician. The first time I’ve seen blue 14/3 romex cable at our shop was last month. We are still going though our previous pallet of white 14/3. We have been using pink 10/3 for many months now but the brand we use is different from that shown in this videos.
A striped jacket indicating x/3 would have been better than 10,000 different colors. Thanks for the video. As a DIYer I saw the blue at Home Depot and thought they were just trying to differentiate from Lowes or something. Was only wiring up a closet light, so didn't investigate further.
Excellent, informative, no-nonsense video presentation.
The new colors for the /3 is so the inspectors can see it for switches. All new switches need a neutral in the box, so no more
/2 to a switch
It can also help to identify 240V circuits, and feeder circuits with a shared neutral, as being something different than the ordinary outlet/light circuit runs...
You can do 2 conductor for a switch, you just need to feed the switch then the light. You also only need one switch in a lighting circuit to have a neutral, so the 2nd switch on a 3 way can be line, traveler, and switched hot and not need a neutral.
Remember there are many exceptions to the nuetral in a switchbox rule. anything with conduit, and if more than one switch controls a light and the boxes are within sight of eachother, only one needs a neutral
@foogod4237 unless it's a 2 wire 240! Although that is less common in modern appliances, i still haven't seen a 240 water heater with a nuetral and I would assume that would be the case unless you have some fancy water heater with built in electronics like a screen or wifi
@@billrobert3226 Older appliances used 120V for lights, motors, timers and controls. With LED lighting, inverter-driven motors and world-compatible electronic controls is is easy to foresee a day when there won't be a need for a neutral on the dryer and range circuits either.
New flavors???!?!? O was getting tired of Vanilla and Lemon... finally someone has answered my prayers!!
Nice rundown, I’d noticed the change, but hadn’t realized that they weren’t just brand coloring
So the take home message is: buy plain THHN and put it in conduit! :)
It is dated too, but hard to read inside a conduit - which is also date stamped.
Date stickered, which should be installed facing the wall for aesthetic purposes
Or use MC/BX.
Cannot put Romex in conduit. Especially in the ground.
Conduit has a date on it as well.
Glad homeowners can do there own electrical work in my state. Still need inspections and to follow 2013 IECC codebook.
Not nec?
That date thing on the wires was awesome. I am retired now, but cannot even tell you the amount of times I busted people for work without permit in the 20 years I was an Inspector. Now don't get all in a huff about those damn inspectors. If I saw it and it looked like a really nice installation, I may just pretend I did not see it. But when it was pretty ugly, rip it all out and do it properly.
How would you feel about 10 AWG being used in a 20 amp circuit for outlets or 12 AWG used for 15 amp circuits?
@@FireHazardMan103 Oversizing is allowed, but not typically done for cost reasons.
I asked for our feeder wires to be oversized because the design temperature at the target current for the standard size is 90C. But the power meter was only rated for 65C.
I actually derived rule 4-0006 of the Canadian electrical code by noticing that some electrical tape had two separate temperature ratings from two different standards bodies. (Forget the exact steps: but that rule points out that you can't design for 90C if your terminals are only rated for 75C (default if not otherwise marked)).
I had no idea Southwire owned Romex. Great video and good info. Thank you.
Of all the products I use, wire is so important. I just messed with some 40 year old outdoor boxes, and having the wire still be pliable and not fall apart shows how important the quality of this stuff is.
@@SilverCymbal Agreed. I'm big on paying more for quality and reputable brand names.
No idea what you’re talking about on this one being in the UK but I like your videos regardless!
Watching the occasional UK electrician installing wiring... yeah it's radically different in Europe (and UK being a little different from other mainland European electrical requirements). you guys pull wires through mostly plastic conduits, we have preformed wires with the protective sheathing (mostly plastic). Our fuse panels are also radically different from how they look and are installed compared to Europe.
I'm glad they did it but I was definitely shocked to see the bold color choices.
4:32 snitches get stitches
Your content is always interesting and relevant. I as wondering, haven't they come out with 16/2, for lighting circuits? I thought I saw a video a few months ago, but the 16awg romex wasn't fully approved yet. I could be mistaken.
Used the pink 10-3 to run a new dryer line at my grandparents house recently. I was pretty confused initially when I went to Lowe's to pick up some wire haha. Didn't know they changed color until I googled it.
I appreciate coming across your video. I will be doing a new house build in about six months and it never occurred to me. That yellow was for 12 gauge. I am specifying 20 amp circuit solved throughout the house and I wanna make sure that that is what happens.
Short, sweet, to the point, and nothing to draw it way out in time. Well done video!
So be sure to keep an extra roll of wire around for later work, just so you can pass it off as old work. 😂
Finally! Make some damn good sense, glad industry stepped up & likely to be code enforced
Super helpful and honesty a change that has been needed for a long time
Its nice that you dont have to break out the micrometer to ensure that its 14 (1.66mm) or 12ga (2.06mm)
Micrometers are way to fiddly. I just use a milliohm meter, a tape measure, and a calculator.
A regular ohm meter has two test leads with one conductor each. They suffer because they have to subtract out the resistance of the test lead itself. A milliohm meter runs a known current through one conductor to each test probe and has a sense wire to measure the voltage at the test probe. These are sometimes called 4 wire meters.
The fancy versions let you choose the test current, so you can overwhelm noise from magnetic or capacitive coupling, or use a wee tiny current if something sensitive might come in contact with the conductor under test.
Oh wait, that's for testing traces on printed circuit boards. For house wiring, I look at the color, read the label, or compare the wire to a known sample. It's a good thing I only do wiring on my own property.
Or you can just try to bend it. You cannot possibly confuse the two then, as 14ga is soooo much more flexible it's not even funny. As an amateur, when working with 12ga wire for switches or receptacles, I almost dread stuffing the excess into the box while closing it up. Whereas with 14ga it's simply never an issue.
@@ps.2 If you saw the thick sheathing on the conductors and casing for my wire, you'd question it too.
First time seeing one of your videos.
GREAT informational piece.
Liked, and subscribed!
Very informative, I've never done a lot of electrical work but it's nice to know now that we own our own home.
we also have Red romex for Electric heat The conductors are red and Black. it is the same colour whether its 12/2 or 10/2.
Believe it or not, this color coding was not something mandated by the NEC. It was something the NM cable manufacturers came up with. Well, I think Southwire did it first, then other manufacturers copied them.
Which one has glow in the dark sheath?
Copper clad by the sea...give it a few years, it glows. Maybe AFI can make it safe? I don't care for it, cu is not that much more....
A very professional video.
The metal jacketed cable is typically called MC Cable. BX Cable is generally old cable without a ground. They were permitted to use the jacket of the cable as a ground. That is no longer allowed and all MC Cable contains a ground wire.
Metal clad, yes, and then there is AC armored clad... bx was the transition from knob and tube... then NM came along.... 😊
Thanks for the detailed, yet simple explanations.
Hola 👋 señor Silver Cymbal 👋😃👋that was a great video very informative and for a minute what I thought when I saw the pink wire I thought the lgtv is sticking its nose in the electrical industry now 😩😫that’ll stink to deal with that but fortunately it’s all for identification only thank you for the information keep up the great content…Saludos!!!👋😃👋
Saludos, el arcoiris... se lo llevaron como bandera...y pintaron los cables...😮.
In Spain they are black or white for normal and then the green is for halogen free and orange for fire resistance.
The wire size is printed or engraved in the insulation in mm²
Cool video, thanks. I didn't know about the colors past yellow. Even just 4 years ago in 2020 I bought a bit of 12/3 that was still in the yellow sheathe.
14-2 includes 3 conductors, but the ground doesn't count. I should have known that, but didn't. Thank you for clarifying.
GREAT information. Thanks 👍
As an electrician for 40 yrs, I think this is good especially for us folks who’s eyes aren’t that great!! LOL!
What about the new stuff coming out for 10A breakers?
Cat 5 with power! Cctv did a PoE system on cat5 12v would definitely smoke the rj45 plugs..😂. Led lighting .... probably 20 or 25 bulbs... and at that number I don't think that 10 Amp would trip....😮 😅 imo 14awg is small enough 😅😅...
Essential info, well presented. Thanks!
I am still amazed at how backwards electrics are in the USA
I just ran a hundred feet of 6/2.... which is now Black... Black used to be the color for 12/2 before yellow. I mined out about 400ft of old Black 12/2 from my house when I moved an illegal sub-panel from a closet.
12/3 direct bury is grey.
12-2 used to be white before it was yellow. It is in his video.
@@janellgorski7189 Yep, but it doesn't change the fact that I have 400ft of BLACK 12/2 from the 70s when the house was built.
@@ramoselthat cable has green letters on it. Midnight black, that jacket is tougher than that Gray uf bullshit... but it says NM... some had a 16 awg bare egc on 12/2 w ground... that little 16awg would glow before the zinscos would trip..😂 😂
I can definitely hear the northeastern accent in your voice. The amount of times I heard "Why-A" instead of wire is insane. Lol
To fix that "extra secret", try a wet cloth and some rubbing. It takes some work, but it worked for me.
What did you wet the cloth with? Acetone?
@soundspark water works just fine.
Excellent thing to know if you are looking to buy a house!
if we keep in mind that the electric code is the minimum you're supposed to use. just make sure you're the next size wire up. work very neatly. make sure you do everything in the box exactly perfect. follow the code.
Wire size is dictated not only by current but by the length of the wire run, as a long run can have unacceptable resistive losses.
@soundspark exactly and if you don't know how long the run is for alternating current and direct current is twice as much resistance. the length of the wire run from the breaker box to the load is critical. you can't run 18 gauge 300 ft and expected run a welder..
I want to know more about changes to the actual AWG measurement...I have 14 AWG in white Romex jacketing throughout my 1975 house, but it seems like it's actually 12 AWG because of how stiff and durable it is. When I buy new White-Romex 14 AWG..it's extremely easy to work with and bends very very easily. Did they actually thin out 14 AWG while still being able to call it 14 AWG?
Is the old wire aluminum instead of copper, or actually 12 gauge?
@@jrheritathe older wire is stiffer, and the new is softer to work with... noticed the other day, a 50a range cord....2 # 8 and a pair of # 10 they used to be #10 on the 30a dryer plug... and #6 was what the stove took. 😮
Home Depot garden employee here, this explains quite a bit for when I have to help out in electrical! ...Still confused as to _why_ they don't count the ground wire in the number of conductors...
Because it's not a CURRENT CARRYING conductor. It's only the ground (safety) so it should never normally be carrying current. Some manufacturers do say 14/3 w/ ground for instance. But originally the cables had no ground and were called whatever gauge/2 or /3. So when they added the ground they didn't change the name because that would confuse everyone buying wire.
Because you can't use it for anything except grounding. A 12/2 wire can have a neutral and hot for 120V circuits, or two hots for 240V. You can't use the ground wire, for example, as a neutral to add a 120V outlet off of a 240V one.
would be nice to see an official sollution for running the 10v control signals for dimmable LED lights in paralell with the power inside one cable.
I agree, I worry also for the folks that ran pink for low voltage data cabling as this may create some confusion there too
Quick and informative, good video.
This is a good change. The NEC should adopt color coded wires.
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Honestly im surprised color coding wasn't a thing since the beginning. Dating also makes since. For example if a particular wire manufactured on a particular date was flawed we wouldn't have any way to know prior to dating. For example if a wire failed in 5 years causing fires. Investigating that would be difficult.
Didn't they also add "foot" markers to make it easier to know how much cable you had without having to measure? I have seen it on some kinds of cables but no sure it is on all NMC yet.
Ol coax rg6 on dss and rg59u on broadband....
Obsolete now....fiber 🎉😊
All those new colors may be available but only for special order. My Home
Depot only has the old tried & true White-Grey-Black & Yellow on the shelf.
!
I remember installing some other colors back in the 80s. Notably, there was a light blue NM 14 ga if I recall.
Wow! That's informative. Thanks.
A strange thing I just realized.... yellow wire here has two conductors that are 12 gauge.... but the ground is 14 for some reason. Yours seems to be 12 for all three.
10 awg and smaller the egc is the same size as the rest. #8 has a #10 egc and #6 as well has a #10 ecg.
I would have been a fan of a repating black band to denote the 3rd switching wire.
Ha, that cable that you called "pink" is actually sheathed with _red._ Look, it's almost same shade as the individual insulator on the traveler wire: RED. That one that you called "purple" might be purple all right, but it's actually closer to pink than that one that you _called_ "pink."
I would imagine that if an inspector is there to approve wiring, it won't matter *when* it was installed since it's still your house the wiring is installed in. I suppose a homeowner could spray paint the cable and make the inspector get a set of calipers to measure the wire gauge.
BX is code defined, not sometimes called BX. Re the colored NM , I would have preferred that they added two black tracers to the white, yellow, and orange rather than coming up with three new colors. That would have left the other colors for future uses.
And frankly if a person doesn’t know why they would use 12-3 instead of 12-2, they probably shouldn’t be doing electrical, beyond replace in kind.
Keep up the good work
I bought and new custom home in 2010 and I noticed that all the wire was yellow except for heavier gauge wire. They had wired the entire house without any 15amp circuits. I never blew a breaker in that home.
Interesting it wasn’t until 2001 that it finally changed. Cool info.
North America: Romex just got colour-coded and it comes in funny sizes.
Europe: NYM-J or NYY? 1 phase or three phase? 1,5 mm² or 2,5 mm² conductor cross-section?
With these options, we'll have >95% of residential installations covered.
Sorry but I have been an electrician since the 90s ( in Florida ) before me the Romex was black then before that it was clothe. Orange and yellow came out in the 2000s. All of this was done to make it easier for inspection and application.
I had heard that a 16 gauge cable had been approved for LED lighting on 10 amp circuits, is this true? And if so, what color would it be?
Or you could live in Chicagoland where electrical is all in conduit!
Whoa 🤯 That is hard core!
@@SilverCymbal Evidently, that's why all our outlets are horizontal instead of vertical - easier to install that way with conduit, or so I've been told.
All my underground stuff from the main house to outbuildings is underground in conduit but that's about it
The X/3 wires are also used for lights with dimmers or smart switches.
That was all very helpful, thank you
IMO the colors used for the 3 conductor cables would be much better used for the larger gauges like 8, 6, and 4. Keep it to one color for each gauge.
It would have been easier to have all wire gauges the same color but add a stripe or pattern to show a different number of a conductors. Like 14/2 is white, but 14/3 is still white with a blue stripe. 10/2 is orange, 10/3 is orange with a blue stripe. No stripe is always 2 plus ground, blue stripe is always 3 + ground, black strips would be 4 + ground no matter the gauge...
Went into home Depot a few weeks ago and saw all these colors. Guess people will have to take the date off of them now
Shows a picture of type "MC" cable; calls it "BX" cable. 😅
While both BX and MC are "armored cables", BX has a steel outer sheath, while MC sports an aluminum outer sheath.
There is a difference.
The "Romex" was the name of the original NM cable, trademarked by the Rome Wire and Cable Company, of Rome, NY. Subsequently, other companies also began producing type NM cable, but the "Romex" name stuck to all of them. The "Southwire Corporation" bought the Romex name in the mid-2000's, and currently owns the trademark for it's use on their NM products.
But it's always gonna be called Romex!
Yellow and orange is more than 20 years old, i had no idea it was color coated. Im guessing it started in 94, 30 years ago.
It was only a week ago when i discovered this, as a freshman in a "vocational" school, when i went to use 14/3 for a project and it was blue
The problem occurred when the wire industry got rid of round 3 wire cable and made them flat. That is the reason for the new colors.
Instead of Rainbow Agents we will now have Rainbow Romex :V
In Canada, our 30 amp Romex is red.
Orange has been here on 10 awg but the 10/3 is pink now... lol.
Great Info.
Can someone explain to me -- do Americans only have one wire manufacturer to the whole country? Here in Eastern Europe we have a bazilion of different brands, colors, etc, you can use whatever you want, it's all up to you.
In the US there are 2 major brands for the sort of NM household wiring he's talking about here, Southwire (with their RomexⓇ trademark) and Cerrowire. He mentions both, in passing, in the video.