That's because the sleeving is not meant to identify function, i.e. to tell you that the conductor is switched, only that it is a line conductor.
Brown sleeves on switched live cable (lighting)
- Thread starter RenoMan
- Start date
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Indeed so (per regs) - but as you will understand, what we have been discusing for the last page or so has been:
...and, from the responses, it is clear that quite a few people do add their (own version of) 'functional identification', the problem being that there is not consistency in the way they do it.
Kind Regards, John
Yes, I know.
But the regs don't.
Of course there isn't.
So anybody who encounters it and expects it to have been done the way they think it should be is a fool.
And until there is an agreed system people should not do it.
Of course, and I thought that was implicit in what I said. Unless/until (certainly not holding my breath!) there are established conventions/ regulations as regards 'functional identification', it surely 'goes without saying' that no-one can conclude anything about any such identification they come across unless it was of their own doing (or of the known doing of someone else whose practices they were aware of).
I don't necessarily agree with that. I, for one, will (for my own purposes) certainly continue to utilise 'functional identification' in my own home and in any other electrical installations that I anticipate I may find myself 'maintaining' in the future. However, as you say, anyone else who comes across my 'identifications' and makes guesses as to their meaning would be a fool! (although, as far is my home is concerned, they would not have to guess, since my 'identifying conventions' are fully defined in the documentation of the electrical installation).
Kind Regards, John
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What's the point? I have plenty of these in my house and when/if replacing the switch I don't give too hoots about testing which is switched live and which isn't. The switch doesn't care, the regs don't care, and the installer/maintainer, in most cases, doesn't care.
Sorry to sound a bit cranky, just clocking off!
In most case it obviously doesn't matter, so there is 'no point'. However, there are times when it's useful to know - for example if one wants to pick up the 'permanent live' for some purpose.
However, the truth is probably more of a 'habit', based on a pedantic dislike of things (of any sort) which are not 'identified'/labelled. For example, if/when I ever needed to know, I could fairly easily trace pipes in my house to determine 'which was which' and where they were going - but, despite that, I still like to have them 'labelled'!
Kind Regards, John
When it's all ad-hoc, there is no requirement to document it, so not everybody will.
There are no defined standards for documentation, and no defined procedures for controlling it, maintaining it, and transferring ownership of it, so there's no guarantee that any documentation would be useful or sufficiently persistent.
Given those two concerns, what's going to happen if ever the regulations do introduce a requirement, and a lot of installations are suddenly in contravention of the required system?
A place my Dad worked at once decided it would be a good idea to have all pipes (which included electrical ones) colour coded. There were plans showing what was what, and they had a maintenance guy paint the pipes. There was a store which contained piping, conduit, etc, and tins of the paint which had been used on the walls. One Friday evening, after the painter had packed up for the weekend, a few of the people who worked there quickly installed some extra runs of pipe, appearing to go into floors/walls/ceilings etc, painted them so they looked like all the existing ones, and on Monday morning the night shift distressed the new ones before the maintenance guy turned up again.
Cue a lot of people wandering about scratching their heads because the drawings did not match up any more.
I'll leave that to your crystal ball, but I would suggest that you don't hold your breath! If a regulatory requirement for documentation ever arose (and even that may not happen for a very long time,if ever), it would probably take many decades before all installations could be expected to be fully compliant.
Kind Regards, John
With things as large as pipes, there's probably usually no need to colour code them, since there's usually plenty of space for 'labelling' them in 'plain English'. Conductors within domestic cables are a tad smaller!Kind Regards, John
As said before, waste of time and effort marking the switched live of a brown+brown cable. If an alteration or addition was being made, you would always check which wire was which, if you needed to know.
That's essentially all true, but it doesn't change habits! It's clear from some of the responses in this thread that such marking (albeit utilising a whole variety of conventions!) is not that uncommon!
Kind Regards, John
This could start a new topic, on the subject of who actually uses twin brown+brown cable. Personally I don't, as I know at some point I'm gonna accidently use it where I shouldn't.
There's something a bit pointless about sleeving a 3 core and earth cable in a 2-way switch, when you consider they are phase colours, but I still make sure I do it.
There's something a bit pointless about sleeving a 3 core and earth cable in a 2-way switch, when you consider they are phase colours, but I still make sure I do it.
I've certainly never 'used'it, in the sense of having installed it, but I have certainly 'some across' brown+brown and red+red. You presumably wouldn't get very far in using brown+brown when you shouldn't, since you would 'smell the rat' as soon as you started trying to terminate it!
Totally pointless (in a single-phase installation), I would say, but 'required' by regs and, I presume, widespread practice (for that reason). Mind you, 3-core brown-brown-brown would really be a pain!
Kind Regards, John
No, it wouldn't.
3 core and earth brown+brown+brown would be very easy to determine which core is which.
The flat cable's structure would be brown, brown, earth, brown - so you would always be able to tell the wires apart.
3 core and earth brown+brown+brown would be very easy to determine which core is which.
The flat cable's structure would be brown, brown, earth, brown - so you would always be able to tell the wires apart.
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