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Conductor identification - what would you do

jbrameld
You are replacing some old-fasioned light fittings (that look like inverted 1970s pub ashtrays screwed to the ceilings) with shiny new LED dome fittings.  The house is wired in T&E with red and black cores and you find that the switched line feed is coming into the existing fitting as a black core in a T&E.  Mostly you have found that these have been nicely oversleeved in red, but one or two aren't.


Would you :


a: Oversleeve/mark in red to be consistent with the existing wiring

b: Oversleeve/mark in brown as that is the common 'current' colour for a single phase line conductors

c: Leave it as black as that is an allowed 'phase' colour these days......!

d: Something else - if so what?


Jason.
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    Option a is very interesting - clearly you are providing identification that does not comply with the current BS 7671, but at the same time, you are not fitting that wiring, you are in effect returning it to the state it should have been in at the time? Let's say the sleeving fell off when you removed the light fitting, and got lost - would it then have been OK to put red sleeving back?


    Option b is of course compliant with the current version of BS 7671, and would have to go top of the list of options, but it would require the "colours to 2 versions of BS 7671" label of Regulation 514.14.1 to be fitted.


    Option c would not comply. Single phase line conductors all have to be brown now - the option of using the phase colour for single phase circuits was removed when the new colours were introduced, to avoid the confusion that might otherwise ensue.


    Option d - alphanumeric - fit an oversleeve with L on it (e.g. https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/cable-markers/8121149/). No requirement for "colours to 2 versions of BS 7671" label.




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    I'd probably do a) (especially as I still have several tens of metres of red sleeving lying around on my shelf of things that might still come in useful one day)


    I'd prefer not to have a mix of colour codes on the same multicore cable - (say you found one tagged black and blue - what would you conclude the colours meant? - L2 & N or N & L3?), so if I did oversleeved black with brown for the switch drop I'd probably oversleeve the other core brown as well.


    Definitely not C - black means L2, so not at all appropriate for a single phase circuit.


       - Andy.
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    gkenyon:

    Let's say the sleeving fell off when you removed the light fitting, and got lost - would it then have been OK to put red sleeving back?


    Interesting question! Graham has summed up the options nicely.


    If the red sleeving fell off and you caught it, would anybody not put it back? So what's the difference if you cannot find it?


    If you decide to oversleeve (both conductors) in brown, I think that the other end of the cable should be oversleeved in the same way. I haven't got the BBB to hand, but shouldn't the conductors be identified throughout their length?


    I have also asked myself the question whether all conductors in a single circuit should be identified in the same way; but if one has been extended, or say a switch drop has been replaced due to damage, there may well be cable in both colours. So both colours of sleeving may be present.


    On balance I would go for option a. For safety and the avoidance of confusion, I think that the colour of sleeving should match the colour of the (multicore) cable which is being sleeved.


    Graham's option d. may be reserved for exams. ?


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    D. I would use both red and brown tape and one of those "L" markers along with a set of written instructions and a link to a Youtube vid.
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    Thanks all for the interesting responses.


    I actually did a) as that seemed to make most sense to me and have the lowest likelihood of future confusion.


    I'm interested to know how you would apply a hyperlink to a Youtube video onto the cable.  Perhaps just leave a piece of paper stuffed inside the light fitting with the details on?!


    Jason.


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    Apologies Jason. Your question was perfectly legitimate and it was rude of me to be flippant. I had spent the day muddling through distribution boards that were an untidy jumble of conductors some with black marked red, blue used as cpc and no thought whatsoever to relating neutrals to their associated phases. Things made worse as the installation was originally singles in steel conduit/ trunking but the twin and earth brigade had broken in and left their mark.
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    de6cddbd43047a6ae617944a7275ea24-original-93a80f79-8f53-45e5-9d96-6fb36cd1d079.jpg
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    Lyle - No need to apologise - My response had tongue plated firmly in cheek, as I'm sure your original one did, epsecially after a day dealing with that mess!  It may be the angle of the photo but it looks like a brown connected to a blue through a terminal block in there - my issue pales to insignificance!
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    Maybe, now we have left the EU, we can revert to Black and Red as permissable colours.

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    Harry Macdonald:

    Maybe, now we have left the EU, we can revert to Black and Red as permissable colours.

     


    That would leave 16 years of chaos. We will still be in the EU as a trading partner, not as a Union member, and will still need to buy and sell electronic/ electrical appliances with leads attached to the EU as well as others. AFAIS, Blue now appears to be the standard colour of neutral or negative throughout the developed countries. (I'm sure that there are still many counties that use black or whatever as neutral)


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