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My house is a museum. Built in 1925, it has some abandoned knob and tube, pre 1950 cotton romex, 1960 rayon, 1970 plastic, and 2000 colour coded Romex (plus a variety of BX armoured cable). What this video missed was that the older cotton varnish romex and some BX could come with a FLAT grounding strip/wire. Also, for old Romex and BX, those individual plastic insulated conductors would ALSO be sheathed in a cotton sleeve, which IS ANNOYING to work with as it unravels and splays out at the ends (wrap with tape if you want to stay neat). That old plastic is now incredibly brittle, especially around hot light fixtures. In many cases, it is the old cotton sheath holding the cracked plastic together to keep from shorting. My 1970's dryer is a direct-wired General Electric with cotton sheathed 10-3 WITH ground (might have been 14 guage) which was a nice safety touch.

How is a 20 amp rating NOT LESS THAN a 15 branch circuit? Isn’t 20 greater than 15?

Great video, hate the color change.

Colored no one can read English

Is there any truth that round (spiral-wound) three-conductor NM cancels EM noise into adjacent signal cables better than flat NM?

All NM cable should be round, so much easier to install !!! Great video thank you.

Southwest cable must be a DEI company those colors match up with another organization.

This was interesting. I know my house was built in the 60s. Some of the wiring is that fabric insulated type, but they have a thin (definitely smaller than 14 gauge) aluminum ground. The hot and neutral conductor are both copper. From the info here, it seems like it was likely built between 62 and 65.

That blue is a horrible idea. Some hot homeowner in a dark attic is going to think he’s cutting CAT5 cable.

in canada blue is 14/2 for arc fault circuits. 12/2 is red for heating. yellow is 12 awg for other applications. atleast as of 12ish years ago

was a buider mostly residential...lot of remodels...saw progression from knob and tube thru the original colors...also the added protection of grounding including reguiring switchs have a grd...good informative video

Not an Electrian, but as a homeowner. The color change help me identify an electrical plug added to a existing circuit, which lead to the discovery of a hidden junction box.

As long as the manufacturers keep the color standardized it’s a good idea I think..

I can fully appreciate the uprated nature of electrical service... The third leading cause of fires are caused by electrical malfunctions and the better We wire homes and businesses the lower fire loss caused by electrical malfunction...

Sees video from Backyard Maine. Result: instant “like.”

They really should standardize the color codes across the board! Would make it better for everyone involved. I don't see what the problem is in doing this. Thanks for vid!

It’s 2024, rainbow wires brought to you by Nazi pride community. Where’s there brown wires?

My biggest gripe with this is simply that the purple sheathing seems low quality compared to the others. I've already used it and it's noticeably softer and has more drag than yellow, white, or even blue. We pulled some through an attic and it was already getting caught on the hole through the top plate and getting messed up where others cables went through smoothly

The colors are pulled from telecom . Primary, White, Red, Black, Yellow, Violet. Secondary, Blue, Orange, Green, Brown, Slate. Sparky can't have all the fun 😂😂

that's to identify if the electrician is LGBTQ+ compliance?

Thank you, John ... great content and presentation, as always. Really enjoyed hearing the history and keeping up with the changes. Do you anticipate another new color coming for smaller (16 or 18) ga wire to run LED branches? Maybe we should start a pool to guess what color they'll use ... something in a periwinkle or aquamarine perhaps?? Personally, I think barber pole red-white-blue would be nice. 🙂 Thanks again for the great work!! 42-Jack

In the are that in located in Canada most 12 gauge circuits designed for electric resistance heating is done with red jacketed 12/2

not leaving service loops is just not a good idea. ie: 'tear the walls apart to add 2 inches of wire'

That’s great, love the color code. Now if they could do something about the price.

I have not seen a Chicago three way in years.... thanks for the Memories..

You failed to mention the pink 12ga Romex that came out over 10 years ago

My kitchen was remodeled in the 60's and actually has black vinyl 12/2 with 16g ground conductors. So apparently there was some overlap between moving from the cloth wire and ground wire size requirements. The sunroom that was later built onto the kitchen also has black vinyl 12/2 but with 12g ground wire, that was done in the early 70's.

Unless UL changed the applicable standard, the cable is still held to appropriate performance criteria.

When companies self standardize it fosters trust in the products. They could have easily wanted to push their color selection as a trademark perk of their product (not saying it would pass the courts, but they could have tried), and raised a stink when another company came out with similar colors. For safety critical things, like mains wiring, its always a good thing to not stand it the way of more companies adopting a standard whether your company was the first to do it or not. Of course....this is something non-safety related products still need to learn (gives the old flip phones, the phone battery market, and the early anti-customer ARGB market, the stink eye....YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID!!!).

UP without a AFCI a thin falling conducting object has a 50/50 chance of bridging only the Ground and Neutral.

Yeah, long time Electrician here too... Ha.. Some of the best times were doing custom Homes... Now I'm all Industrial... My Trade has been good to me.

I guess you could run lights in a building where 1. Lights aren't the most important thing. And 2. Most of the breaker capacity is being used in things that make the owner money.

I’m old enough to have worked with all of the designs you described up to the 2024 updates. Home electrical is not my profession so the timeline and specifics escaped me. I found this video very informative and interesting. You do a great job with your videos!

Ok so as an electrician who isn’t color blind I have no problem with this change… BUT I am one of the few around my electrician friend group who can sees colors correctly! Don’t know what it is with guys I know but most of them are blue/green color blind. That’s going to be interesting when some body picks up 14/3 thinking it’s 12/3! 😅

Very much worth while considering the form factor of the plug going into the receptacle. Flat 3 prong plugs like those on fridges tend to not last well with ground up. For straight 3 prong cords, the longer ground plug is more resistant to gravity trying to droop the plug within the receptacle. Then there’s good old “pareidolia”, or the tendency to see faces in things that aren’t faces. Young kids love faces, and they are more likely to “play” with plugs that look like faces - hence we now have TR resistant receptacles. So in the end, no right answer, only factors to consider.

I like electric history lessons, now I know what NB stands for, but I'll forget in 6 months so you'll have to remind me again. I still remember that metallic wire coverings in in my parents house, and remember my older BIL adding some outlets with that new NB wire in early 1960s, the house had about 4 outlets downstairs with 6 lights, nothing upstairs, one light in 16'x16' dirt cellar, by 1967 my BIL doubled it and all ran on 60 amp fuse box. Those were simple times and everyone knew what a woman was.......... I'm a big fan of color coting for identifications, but they still refuse to comply with my color wishes and demands, my demands are simple and easier for DIYs, I demand all HOT wires be RED, and all GROUND wires be GREEN, black for hot is the most blank blank blank bkankaty blank color for hot!!!! Has anyone ever seen a black fire or white ground, in July, in the US mainland.....

Great video. Although I’m retired, I still enjoy keeping up with Code changes and new developments in equipment, tools and tech.

Dude! You explain this stuff so well.

Working in plastics for a short time led me to realize that some colors are selected because of the lines that run certain colors in the plant. For instance, if you mix orange and blue, you get gray. So run a blue line near an orange line, regrind can go in either (in the middle layer). This works for a lot of colors. Similarly, changing colors was easier from blue to orange. I would imagine, some of the colors you see in various similar plastics are based on the colors available mixed, ratios controlled by servos in the hoppers.

I really learned a lot about wiring today, thank you!

Not good if you are colorblind

These are the new woke, all inclusive cable. so all groups are not offended by old straight colors

Great info... thanks!

What are the introducing for the new 10 amp circuits now approved. To be used mostly for LED lighting with 10 amp breaker size.

What, no fusia?

👍👍

looks like now they want rainbow colored wires. Sounds like they are going woke in a different way. 🤣🤣🤣

Why not add the extra colors - All these colors are used with Cat6 type telco so the wire manufactures have the equipment in house. Also having the extra colors also is a back door to increase sales. In some data centers that deal with secure government communications, the unsecured data lines will have a different color than the secure. It is a fire-able offense to mix up a secure port wire color with a unsecure. So you make sure that when you need to order, you always have lots of extra of the critical colors, then some fool will classify a different type of line for his silly ass "special project" and now you are stocking 20 rolls of different colors when all you used to have was 3. Standardization is good as long as it is voluntary agreed by the manufacturers.

Tool in the video question. What is the brand name and type of the wire strippers in your video?

I just picked up some 12/3 romex and was surprised to see it was purple. It does make sense to be able to identify it later on in life, especially if it was a different homeowner than the one who installed it.