cable colours and sleeving Ask questions and find answers to many subjects relating to electrics and electrical work

[geswhu]

Hi i have installed a single phase supply using a three core swa cable. the core colours are brown,black, grey. I have used the brown as the phase,the black as th neutral and put blue sleeving on both ends.The grey is used as the cpc and again sleeved green / yellow both ends .I have been refused a test cert and told to swap the black and grey .Is this true and why.[/b]

[kuzz]

If the cable core was pink with yellow spots, as long as it's sleeved correctly it wouldn't be an issue. If the infomation you give is correct it seems like a very odd request.

[sparx]

Hi, it has been well documented from IET, ECA ect. that in order to try to break the mental links between black & Neutral the recommended scheme is to sleeve Grey as Neutral (BLUE) & sleeve black as Earth, so yes it is not approved as done BUT as Kuzz says as long as identified correctly which could be by numbered tags even eg L1, L2, N, it should not matter.

[ericmark]

514.4.3 PEN conductor
A PEN conductor shall. when insulated. be marked by one of the following methods:
(i) Green-and-yellow throughout its length with. in addition. blue markings at the terminations
(ii) Blue throughout its length with. in addition. Green-and-yellow markings at the terminations.
And
514.4.2 Protective conductor
The bi-colour combination green-and-yellow shall be used exclusively for identification of a protective conductor and this combination shall not be used for any, other Purpose.
Are the only places where you can't sleeve or tape the ends.
I therefore can see nothing wrong with what you have done.

[ericmark]

I see you also posted on IET web site and all answers seem to be the same!

[geswhu]

Hi thanks for all your help I have read everything that is written on core colours and they all come back to the answer that it does not matter as long as the ends are identified with the correct colours.Thanks again for all your help.