Colours of flex wires in the US?

Joined
28 Jul 2012
Messages
1,357
Reaction score
56
Location
Surrey
Country
United Kingdom
In the UK where I am, the colours of the wires inside a flex wire are brown for live (red for pre 70's flex cables), blue for neutral (black for pre 70's flex cables), and yellow/green for earth (Green for pre 70's flex cables).

In the the US, do your flex wires use black and white like your solid core house wiring, or some other colouring regime?

And when i say flex cords, i am talking about the ones on a appliances, etc...
 
Sponsored Links
In the US black is live (called hot), white is neutral, and green is earth (called ground).
 
I'm fairly sure that the norm for flex in the US is the same as for fixed wiring, that is black-hot, white-neutral and green earth.
 
I know black is hot in the US and that earth is refereed to as ground, I was wondering about the flex wires on appliances and things like camera charges, etc...
 
Sponsored Links
I know this thread is a little stale now, but you don't seem to have received a definitive answer.

So yes, the color coding on flexible cords follows that of fixed wiring: Black = live/hot, white = neutral, green =earth/ground. That's where color coding is used, which is normally just cords which have a separate outer sheath (types referred to as SVT, SJT, etc.).

Many appliance cords where a ground is not required are still of a single-insulated type, akin to the "figure-8" or "zip cord" which used to be used in Britain years ago (type SPT, commonly referred to as lamp cord). Where identification is required, you'll find that the strands of conductor are different inside: Plain copper is used for live/hot, silver colored for neutral. A similar convention is applied to the screw terminals on some plugs and receptacles: Plain brass-colored heads are the "hot" side, plated silver color for the neutral (and the ground terminal screws normally have a hexagonal head with the top colored green).

Where needed, 4-core flexible cords add red to the black, white and green for the second "hot" conductor, as typically found for heavy range cords.
 
Last edited:
I've also come across brown and blue on US appliances imported from the Far East. Normally you would not know unless you take the covers off or cut the plug off. Is that legal?
 
The NEC did add light blue as a permissible alternative a few years ago (somewhere around the 2005 edition, I think). Note that, like the original requirement in the U.K. when introduced, it does specifically say light blue, not just any old shade of blue as often seems to be used across Europe now! And it's only allowed on sheathed small appliance cords, not as a general alternative to white or gray in fixed wiring.

The brown isn't a problem either, since the code doesn't actually require a specific color for the "hot" conductor, only that it be something other than white, gray, or green (or green/yellow). Black is the traditional choice, of course.

Actually, for fixed wiring as well the NEC hasn't demanded specific phase colors since about the mid 1970's, only recommending the traditional black, red, blue which were formerly required, although It would be unusual to find anything else in a basic 3-phase installation (and some places might still demand specific colors by local amendment to the NEC).

Where a larger commercial place has both 120/208 and 277/480V systems in the installation, it's convention to use black, red, blue plus white neutral for 120/208 and brown, orange, yellow with gray neutral for 277/480, although purple is sometimes used instead of orange.

Since 1971, orange has also been the recommended color to identify the high leg of a 4-wire delta system.
 
Here you go, this is a typical replacement cord with molded plug:

DSCN3795.jpg
 
Sponsored Links
Back
Top