On Jan 13, 7:14*pm, DerbyDad03 wrote:
wrote:
On Sun, 13 Jan 2013 06:52:52 -0800 (PST), "
wrote:

On Jan 13, 6:57 am, wrote:
A large store downtown has a heavy FOUR wire triplex feeding the
building. *3 wires are black insulated, the other is the bare neutral.

The thing that caught my attention to it, is that the 4th wire is not
connected to anything.

If it's not connected to anything, why are you identifying it
as the neutral? *You have 3 wires that are apparently
current carrying conductors and one that is bare, not
connected. *Assuming this is overhead, ie going from the
pole to the building, sounds like the bare wire is for
support only and you have a 240V service, with two
hots, one neutral.

Yep, the bare wire is the support, but it's also the neutral. *There are
3 insulated wires wrapped around the bare one, not the usual two. *And
yea, as another person said, it's not really TRIPLEX, because that would
be 3 wires. *I'm not sure what they call the 4 conductor stuff, but it's
the same type of cable. *The way it's connected, it's a 240V feed. *So
my guess is that either they had 3 phase feeding that store in the past,
or else they just used the cable they had on hand when they installed
it. *It's been there awhile, the building is probably close to 100 years
old. *I noticed it because there is a deck on the building next door,
and I was on the deck last week. *The entrance head is probably only 12
feet up from that deck, it's easy to see the unused wire. *I tend to
notice stuff like that, after doing construction most of my life.

Your original post is unclear. When you say the 4th wire is not connected
to anything, are you referring to the bare wire?

If so, then I gotta repeat the question trader4 asked:

How can it be a neutral if it's not connected to anything? Furthermore, a
neutral carries current and therefore must be insulated. How can you call a
bare wire not connected to anything a neutral?

If it's not connected it's neither a hot, a neutral or a ground. It's just
a wire. If it's bare, then it wouldn't be a neutral even if it was
connected to something.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

He just clarified that 4th unconnected wire is
one of the insulated conductors. So, like he says,
if that is what;s there, then it's apparently a 240V
service that might have been 3 phase before.