30 AMP home wiring Question

Get an electrician. I see problems with almost all of the advice given so far. A outlet must, in most states in the US, have a metallic ground connection back to the main panel, a separate non-locally-bonded white neutral cable, and a hot cable. You used to be able to re-mark cables with tape but that hasn't been allowed for a number of years, again in most states. Now you must use a indelible marker or paint. In some states, if a sub-panel is in a separate building with no metallic connection back to the building the main panel is in (like plumbing, telephone, cable TV or other electrical wiring) then a local bonded ground can be permissible. It is never permissible to either ignore local codes or to do wiring installations without a permit, regardless of if you own the building in question it's always illegal, as far as my experience goes. If you do it or not is up to you. If you can sort out the ground issue, you should be able to install a 50 amp style outlet but fused to suit the 8 gauge wiring, for 40 amps or 50 amps depending on the type of cable.

Brian

Johno02 wrote:
The white wire is always a ground, and codes may just require an earth ground at the outlet.

This is totally incorrect! The white wire is a neutral and is required to complete the circuit. The ground wire will be bare and will ultimately connect to a ground to earth. Sometimes the neutral and ground are bonded, but the two are separate circuits.

Dutch Oven Man wrote:


My question is, can I use the red wire as my ground for a 30 amp service? I'm thinking I would connect my hot and neutral as usual to a 30 amp single pole, and the red to the ground buss bar in the breaker box.

Yes, do this and merely strip the red insulation away from the wire all the way to the wire jacket. That way it is clear the wire is a ground.

As the wiring was probably installed for a 220v circuit, A copper ground back to the box may not be required. The white wire is always a ground, and codes may just require an earth ground at the outlet. I thing your best bet would be to check with a local licensed electrician, but I personally would never use a red wire as a ground connection.

RV Electric

You can tape the ends of the red wire with green tape at both ends to make sure you and your successor will know years from now what is what. They sell rolls of colored tape for that purpose at HD or Lowes.

A dangerous game for the next guy - if you do use the red, mark it with several bands of GREEN electrical tape at each end, or even pigtail with green or bare copper at each end so it's obvious.

Back in the day, the NEC allowed for this but you need to use colored tape to identify the conductor (hot/neutral/grd). If it is no longer legal, I am sure someone will chime in.

I don't think it matters which color you use as long you own your house and you never want to change anything. However, if you ever decide to sell the house that wiring configuration will most likely fail an inspection (but it will not hurt anything or cause any problems ... just inspectors). If you ever decide to sell, just unhook that wire and put it back the way it was.

When we had our garage wired for 30 amp, I had an electrician actually hook the wires into the breaker panel and the outside plug box. He said, Black wire to the copper colored screw, white wire to the silver colored screw, and the third one to ground.