European Cable Colours

Yes. Thanks It all makes sense now. Seems like there may have been a hole in my studies Or I must have been asleep when I was supposed to learn that bit! Maybe I just got too used to installing single phase twin and earth! There's none of that out here, it's all singles in conduit.

Thanks Again (not so bright spark)

You will find after a few installations, that the English way of wiring (twin 'n' earth style capped in the walls or ran through holes in the floor joists and stud walls) is quite antiquated compared with the EU system of throwing the tubes in first (first fix) followed by pulling in the singles then second fixing! The system is very adaptable and if you want to change a socket into a light switch or what ever, it is only a case of pulling the old cables out and pulling in some new cables making all the connections in the connection box! It is so easy to fault find and to rewire a house is not a case of pulling up the floor boards or fishing with a bit of YT2! Good luck Bright Spark but be careful of the old houses, they have some strange ways of wiring with no regard for cable size or colour, come to think of, sometimes, the don't even have insulation, just something that looks like it until you touch it and get thrown! Use a volt stick on everything!

There maybe no holes in your study but if you do not check other peoples work then you definitely have missed something.

You seem to be on top of these color codes. So, can you tell a dumb Yankee, why is it that amongst the AC colors are Brown and Blue, and most DC circuits from Europe come with a Brown wire for the positive and a Blue wire for the common? Isn't this a bit on the dangerous side?

What about US standards where Black is ground for DC, hot for AC?

Most electrical specifications from our customers, at least in the pharmaceutical industry, ask for Blue for DC positive and Blue w/White for common. Red and Black are never used on DC anymore, at least not in this industry in this country. Last time I tried that, I had to rewire all DC circuits. Red is usually used for AC control wiring as well as a phase of 208VAC, and Black is also a 208VAC phase, as well as a general AC wire where colored wires can not easily be purchased. Just throw on a colored tape. So, no doubt about what is 24VDC in an American pharmaceutical panel.

I live in Portugal also.

I think maybe you are from UK possibly.

In UK and Portugal there is laws and standards but European as opposed to UK wires are different colours and there is some issues as you mention.

I have seen houses wired with all conductors made from yellow and green (ground / Earth.)

Yes it is true....some people just buy cable because it is cheap and they know what is happening but they make no plans or diagrams they just do it.

Congratulations on your new 17th edition I am sure it was a good move but some people just do not care use your knowledge to check the wiring.

Hope to have been a help.

Hi. Yes I'm originally from the uk. I've been doing electrical work in Portugal for about a year now and I've seen a lot of bad wiring already. I've also had a couple of 'reminders' that electricity can hurt!! Colours & cable size and general bad layouts being the main problems. 1mm conductors to sockets is quite common here in older houses. But generally the more modern places are ok. I do like the conduit wiring system here, as already mentioned it's easily adapted and re-wired. Many houses here only have a 15A supply so put a kettle and a washing machine on and.. click! out goes the breaker!

Has Portugal adopted some of the more strange regs,Some of my local regs are the meter box has to have a metal door! Sounds normal enough until you find out that the meter box when installed with enough space to close the metal door tends to make the meter box stick out the other side of the wall! Or in some parts of Spain, the local regs say the size of the tube going from a man hole to a meter box has to be 120mm dia and there has to be two of them! Again, the two tubes are bigger than the box itself, and all that so you can pull in a couple of 16mm up to 35mm cables in a domestic situation! Other ones that bend the mind include, and this is in the countryside,Your meter has to be on the edge of your land going directly to the limiter (ICP) without passing any man holes. Now if your farm is a few hundred meters away from the edge of your land, try pulling a few hundred meters of cable with unknown amounts of bends and curves to a little box half way up a wall! Unfortunatly, the people who make the local regs have no idea about electrical installations and just put them in force without thinking! Never mind, there will always be jobworths throwing spanners in the works!

Yes electricity is fast and can hurt.

Bad wiring is the norm in Portugal.

All wiring should be in conduit ??

The main electricity company in Portugal gives up to 3.45KV and I have noticed that if you increase your amount of payment you can get more KV.

Maybe you should check out this.

912 680 295

I believe this is the standard for multicore cables! Reason they chose brown as the phase colour is because it is assumed there will be some kind of switching device before the multicore cable! So the Brown is a switched live! I will ask around today to see what other electricians say on the subject of Black or Brown in a singles situation!

Do not believe everything you read on the internet.

I have a friend who knows someone who makes yellow and green wire like ground/earth wire so all conductors in his house are this colour and there is no ground/earth ??

Just check all wires it is safest.

Hameedullah Ekhlas

All those years of instruction I gave you are starting to show up. GA.

I could not understand, please can you gave some explaination. Please your name ?

There is lots of information about the topic in the internet. Here are some of them for additional help:

http://www.theiet.org/publishing/wiring-regulations/colour/

http://elise.ema.gov.sg/safety/about.html

http://www.spenergynetworks.com/safety/pdf/LV%20Core%20Colours%20Internet1.pdf

http://www.mra.org.mt/Downloads/Publications/Harmonisation_of_wiring_colour_codes.pdf

- MS

Be thankful you are not dealing with Panama wiring standards, which I shall call the "Rainbow" standard. Any color of wire can be used for anything. It is assumed that the electrician always checks the line with a meter before touching it... To connect to the mains (which are often bare overhead wires), one simply throws a conductor over the exposed wire...There is a daily morning clean-up detail that goes through town sweeping up the charred remains- it is assumed that the victims were most likely copper thieves...

maybe you should see :

http://cr4.globalspec.com/blogentry/12769#comment581977

funny !

Hi I'm new on this forum,

Can anyone tell me if the 2 way lighting switch strappers are black & brown? I should mention that I'm in Spain

Thanks in advance