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Are there any house that the white wire is the hot wire?

Update:

As far as electrical wires.

11 Answers

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  • Anonymous
    2 months ago

    Not an acceptable standard without permanent marking but I have seen it in multiple switch applications (two or more switches on same circuit).

  • ?
    Lv 5
    2 months ago

    Yes but they are the racist ones according to todays Liberal logic. You'll need to protest your house until Biden signs an executive order about it.

  • 2 months ago

    yes, it is very common for electricians to use white wire as hot, especially when running a switched hot. The code requires a non-neutral white wire to be properly marked to indicate its new purpose, but not everyone does it in ways that remain permanently.  I've found some idiots using nothing more than a Sharpie to scribble on the white wire's insulation, rather than wrapping the entire exposed white portion in some other type of colored tape (black, red, blue, yellow).

  • y
    Lv 7
    2 months ago

    Lots of them, especially on switched circuits, they were/are suppose to tape them of course, but it isn't done frequently. Then you have the people that played and switched things around and such. If nothing was ever touched, and it was done properly, then no. But that is thing about electricity, people play and things happen.

  • Joe
    Lv 4
    2 months ago

    Yes.  That is because idiots did the wiring.  Always assume a wire is hot regardless of color.  Better yet, always kill the circuit you are working on.  White for household wiring means NEUTRAL.  In electronic circuitry, color meaning changes.

  • ?
    Lv 7
    2 months ago

    Are there ANY, absolutely.  In the US they aren't supposed to be, but well.  It's the US.

    In the US the white wire is defined by electrical code as the neutral conductor for residential wiring, but you just know that there are a great many houses in which the wiring has been badly hacked and the wiring is anybody's guess.  White hot conductor?  Red ground?  It's the Wild West with some of these nuts bodging their wiring every which way, who knows what's what.  You gotta test everything.

    In South Africa, a white wire is sometimes designated a hot conductor; SA code specifies black as the neutral.

    Spock and KY are describing instances in which the white wire is being repurposed as a hot conductor; in those cases the wire is supposed to be clearly indicated as such, usually with paint or (my preference) Sharpie to color several inches of the ends of the wire so it looks like the hot conductor it is.

  • ?
    Lv 7
    2 months ago

    Yes, it is possible in some instances. When the electrical source originates at a light fixture and is controlled from a remote location, a switch loop is used.

    This circuit is wired with a 2-wire cable running from the light to the switch location. The neutral from the source is connected directly to the neutral terminal on the light and the source hot is spliced with the white loop wire. The white wire is marked black on both ends to identify it as hot. At SW1 it is connected to one of the terminals. The black loop wire is connected to the other terminal and at the light, to the hot terminal on the fixture.

  • Anonymous
    2 months ago

    I have only ever come across it in switch cables, but they are not standard.

  • 2 months ago

    Where there is a standard color for wiring, NO.

    Spock's details explain that the CORRECT answer is NO, in ALL cases.

  • 2 months ago

    in special cases, yes it is ... example:  the usual for several decades style of wiring is to connect all the ceiling fixtures in a row ... on the return [white] side and then connect all the hot lines [inside the light's ceiling box] to the switches -- the return line from the switch goes to the hot side of the light -- thus, the white wire is used to carry the hot side WHEN the switch is 'on'.  Same happens with lights on multiple switches.  -- Electrical code says that such 'white' wires are supposed to be marked with red [stripes, usually] -- but in an older home the marking may have worn off or even not been done properly at all.  -- grampa

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