On Wed, 11 Jan 2006 22:13:30 +0000, Tim S wrote:

On Wed, 11 Jan 2006 21:48:59 +0000, SR wrote:

My latest cock-up: Having dug 15M trench, put SWA cable in and
re-filled, I've now discovered it's a 3 core rather than 2 core cable.
Doh! (It did seem a little thick, but I hadn't used any SWA for a
while...) I could just go ahead and use it anyway I suppose, but since
the core colours are brown, black and grey as for 3-phase system, I
can't use the correct single phase colour scheme - there's no blue.

Is there a way round this without digging the whole bloody thing up again?

SR

Don't worry - that's normal. I've not seen any 2 core myself, most if the
sheds sell 3 core anyway.

The consensus of opinion on the IEE forums suggest this (old and new 3
phase SWA colours used in single phase installations) (with some
differences of opinion):

RED OR BROWN - LIVE
YELLOW OR BLACK - EARTH (SLEEVED GREEN/YELLOW)
BLUE OR GREY - NEUTRAL (SLEEVED BLUE)

The whole thread is here, so best check it out yourself:

http://www.iee.org/Forums/forum/mess...&threadid=4722

The important bit is that you sleeve the conductors at each termination
correctly to indicate their true meaning, eg brown sleeve=live,
blue=neutral, yellow/green=CPC earth


Don;t forget, if this is making your installation mixed old and harmonised
colours, there's a sticker you are required by the IEE regs to put on the
CU.

Tim