mjhjmtu

I'm pulling 2 hots, 1 neutral and 1 ground through conduit to a subpanel and I was wondering if it's possible to use the same color wire and just relabel the endings. I was thinking of using 6 AWG white.

My understanding is that the ground needs to be either bare or green, so no relabeling on that. Also neutral needs to be white, which is the color I'm using anyways.

So can I just relabel the 2 hots with black & red tape at the endings? Any NEC reference would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

The colors reserved for the grounded conductors (neutrals) are white and gray, and any base color with three continuous white stripes. You can't re-identify white or gray insulated wires and use them for grounded conductors (hots) for circuits over 50V, unless they are a conductor in a cable or cord. This is commonly seen when white conductors in NM (romex) or MC or AC cables are used as hots in switch loops.

The code section to refer to is

200.7 Use of Insulation of a White or Gray Color or with Three Continuous White Stripes.

So I'd just buy black for the hots, and relabel the one leg with red.

You want NEC 210.5.

• By default you are not allowed to re-mark conductors at all.


• in multiconductor cables only, you are allowed to re-mark only neutrals to be only hots. This is not allowed for individual wires in conduit.


• for wires 4 AWG or larger, you are free to re-mark anything (except ground colors, 250.119) to anything else including ground.

So you have the right idea, but use #4 aluminum instead of #6 copper.

Don't get overexcited about distinguishing hot wires from one another. In North American split-phase, it usually doesn't matter. Black/black is fine. What's much more important is distinguishing each circuit from other circuits. I have one job where the installer installed four 240V circuits in one conduit: each is black/red and you can't tell em apart! Since there was another conduit parallel to that one, a better choice would've been 2 black and 2 red in each conduit.

Also, don't forget to use your all-metal conduit instead of the ground wire. No need for grounds in EMT or rigid, for instance.