Advice needed, house wiring- wrong color but right terminals

[Guest StephenB]

Wiring up a couple of rooms upstairs and checking out the main breaker box. I discovered that the Neutral to Ground is Zero volts, and Live to the other two is 230V. Those measurements are from the terminals with permanent (factory) labels in the breaker box. That is great and sounds good to me! However the color of the wires are wrong (backwards). It kind of annoys me knowing that Live should be black or brown. So the breaker box has the correct wire just not the correct color coming in from the meter outside. It continues like that to every socket in the house. White wire in Live and Black in N terminal.

I have never disconnected from a meter myself and am not going to try. Should I get a Thai electrician to do it, or just leave it like it is and stick to the current color scheme? I would need to switch every wire on each end (socket and breaker, breaker and meter)

hmmmmmm

wife told me house was wired under the supervision of energy department guy in order to get 30A connection. lol

[Moonlover]

I've long had a saying for such situations. 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it'.

 

As long as the electrical system works and you're happy that it's safe, just let it be.

 

It makes no difference to the current, what the colour of the wire is that it travels through.

[Guest StephenB]

good advice , thanx

[Crossy]

Yeah, the 'lectric doesn't care what colour the wire is, so long as everything is the right way round all's right with the world.

 

[xylophone]

39 minutes ago, Crossy said:

Yeah, the 'lectric doesn't care what colour the wire is, so long as everything is the right way round all's right with the world.

 

Support that statement, however the problems that I have found in some places that are wired with their own colour coding, is that what starts off at one terminal as one colour, very often ends up in another terminal as another colour!

 

It would appear that Thai electricians have no problem connecting wires of different colours so that they can use up any spare lengths of cable they've got, irrespective of how it might "confuse" someone looking at the installation sometime later.

 

That's why I am very careful to test every wire with my voltmeter, irrespective of what it is supposed to be!

[Moonlover]

16 hours ago, xylophone said:

That's why I am very careful to test every wire with my voltmeter, irrespective of what it is supposed to be!

Always a sound practice providing one knows what they are doing. The problem when dealing with the wiring here, as well as the colour confusion, is that, invariably there is no earth to provide you with a 0v reference point.

 

So when you put your test meter across  the two wires, it will tell whether there is a voltage there, but not which wire is live. This is why it is always a good idea to follow up with a simple test using an electrician's test screwdriver. It will only glow when it is touched onto the live wire, so you'll know which one is 'hot'.

 

As always with electricity, only start to mess around with it if you're sure you know what you're doing.

[xylophone]

2 hours ago, Moonlover said:

Always a sound practice providing one knows what they are doing. The problem when dealing with the wiring here, as well as the colour confusion, is that, invariably there is no earth to provide you with a 0v reference point.

 

So when you put your test meter across  the two wires, it will tell whether there is a voltage there, but not which wire is live. This is why it is always a good idea to follow up with a simple test using an electrician's test screwdriver. It will only glow when it is touched onto the live wire, so you'll know which one is 'hot'.

 

As always with electricity, only start to mess around with it if you're sure you know what you're doing.

Also have the little test screwdriver to double check, just in case!!

 

I am a qualified electrical engineer/technician (or I was) and still dabble a little here to help friends and do work around my own apt.........still, never surprised at what I find here!