Hello,
I have been doing a lot of work remodeling a house I bought. The house was in really rough shape so I was expecting a good bit of work but the last owners laziness and incompetence has really made things worse.
They had the house split into two apartments and we are converting it back to a single home unit. We knocked out a wall and installed new stairs to connect the top and bottom floors. Next we are converting the upstairs kitchen to a laundry room. We have been using the makeshift room for a few months, but we are getting a new washer and dryer. Our current dryer is a compact electric dryer that runs on a 120v outlet. The new will be a standard electric dryer and need a 240v outlet. There is 240v outlet in the room for a range. I am going to pick up a new breaker from lowes with the proper amperage but wanted to check everything else first and I think I ran into an issue with the wire itself.
There are 3 wires, which matches the outlet so I am assuming it is supposed to be 2 hots and a neutral. However, upon closer inspection there is no insulation on the neutral. I peeled back more of the larger insulation around all 3 wires but the neutral wire is uninsulated like it was a ground. Now, I have encountered this in the house elsewhere. Most of the outlets have grounds cut off, but a 3 way switch didn’t have the second hot wire so they used the ground as the second hot. I got that “fixed” (I unhooked everything and made it a single switch/light circuit and eliminated the second switch). But I don’t know of any 240v wire combinations that would only be 3 wires and include a ground. The wire is definitely thick enough to be 240v wire and each individual wire has multiple “threads” like a 240 wire would. But it is older wire as well so I am not sure if it is just that old that they didn’t insulate neutrals when they did this. Is this wire safe to use?
A second, and more minor question, deals with a separate circuit. The house electric is still split and I pay 2 bills, one for upstairs and 1 for downstairs. The upstairs does have an outdoor AC unit on it as well that was installed after we moved in by an HVAC tech so I am trusting that to be installed right. But the entire box for the “upstairs” has 4 breakers. There is a 50amp, 40amp, and 20amp double pole breakers and a 10amp single pole. The 10amp controls a single light and one of the 240v breakers controls the AC. Another controls the range/future dryer outlet. The The 20amp double pole controls everything else upstairs which is ALL 120v. There are a few lights and all of the outlets. Is that safe? Is there a reason to do that? The upstairs is pretty small if that makes a difference, I have just never seen a double pole breaker used for a 120v circuit even if it is pretty large.
Edit: I made the original post on my PC due to the size but I’m adding some pictures from my phone
Edit 2: I am going to buy and run new wire with the new breaker. I showed a picture to my dad and he said nothing matters because that’s an aluminum ground which means the wire needs replaced due to its age regardless. So even if it’s wired wrong now, I am stripping the wire out and putting a new wire and breaker in so it should be done right
That wire looks absolutely ancient. I would call it a fire hazard and just replace it outright.
Shouldn’t it just be the 2 hots and the ground though? 240v doesn’t use an extra wire afaik, unless you’re thinking 3phase or something.
It does look bad and I plan to replace it regardless. I’m more so wondering if it needs replaced now. Wire is expensive and replacing this will be pretty extensive as I would need to tear out horse hair plaster to unstaple it from the studs. I’m not 100% on if it’s stapled or not but it’s tough to move and the other wires I replaced were stapled down so we had to tear open the plaster and run them that way. This would be going from 2nd story to basement through kitchen behind the sink so it’s not a quick job. If it needs replaced now I’m gonna need to cancel the whole weekend
I’m not an electrician, please consult with one if you’re unsure.
I think Shadow is right on both counts.
The wire is very old. Personally, I would rip it out, but that is a risk assessment you have to make.
A 240V circuit, in North America, gets there by having two hot wires one on each of the 120V circuts from the transformer in the street. So no neutral wire is needed to complete the circuit. If you want to think about electricity “flowing” it flows from one pole to the other (instead of to the neutral in a 120V circuit). The unshielded wire is your ground.
This is a decent guide: https://www.thespruce.com/installing-a-240-volt-circuit-breaker-1824649
Please make sure you understand their point about what the main breaker does and does not disable.
Best of luck, looks like you’re tackling a tough but fun project.
Yeah I Gotcha, wire isn’t cheap.
That uninsulated wire should be ground though, not neutral afaik.
Can you just snake some new wire and not tear out the old wire? Not sure if legal or kosher, but it might save some time and effort.
Snaking wire without a guide for that distance is extremely tough. The normal way to swap out wire would be to tie the new wire to the end of the old and the pull the other end of the old. Since you can’t pull the old (it’s stapled and secured) you can’t pull the new through behind it.
To your edit, it should be 2 hots and a neutral is my understanding. Hots deliver electric and neutrals complete the circuit back to the back. In newer wiring the 4th is the ground but a 240v 3 wire has no ground. However, if it is a neutral it should be sheathed and individually insulated.
That being said, I’m not an electrician and most of this is just what I’ve learned from replacing outlets and rerunning 120v wire in this house. If an electrician wants to tell me I’m wrong I’m all ears
If you’re in North America, which I assume you are based on the 120v wires, then your assumption about 240v power is a bit off. Both wires can be a hot (120v) wire, 180° out of phase from each other, so they add to 240v. In this case, a neutral wire isn’t necessary to carry the current back, the other hot wire does that. A neutral wire may be used, but then there would be 4 wires.
The ground wire and the neutral wire actually connect to each other in the panel, but it’s not safe to use a ground wire in place of a neutral, so definitely don’t wire it to the neutral on the outlet.
If you are unsure of what’s going on with this set of wires, you should really call an electrician to help. Wiring a standard 120v outlet is something a homeowner can do, but identifying an old 240v cable on a dubious circuit is definitely something a qualified electrician should do.
The two hots give you 240 across them, but in North america an appliance may run 120 for standard control functions and 240 for heating functions, so in thise cases you need a neutral to provide a 120 pathway. you will see 240 stove appliance plugs have 4 prongs. 2 hot, 1 neutral and a ground. That wiring looks like a time before grounds were used.
