Cooker internal colour codes

captaincaveman · Jun 3, 2018

Hi guys. Don't think I've come across this before and feel I'm loosing the plot. I'm planning to check with the manufactures on monday morning but wouldn't mind any opinions. I was checking out a tripping RCD on a new cooker range install earlier. The gas engineer / delivery guy refused to wire it up because of it. Anyway, after sorting the RCD issue I connected the range up (abiding the manufacturers instructions). Strange thing is the cookers internal cabling to the live is black and to the neutral it's red. Now as you can see from the picture the situation is the circuit red supply is now terminated leading to the black load and the circuit black neutral is now terminated leading to the red load neutral!! Taking into account red & black are old colour codes and this is a new appliance it still seems either the manufacturer is crazy, the installer swapped all the cables over before i got there (which i doubt) or the factory assembler has quite literally got his wires crossed.
Any bets anyone?

shaun1 · Jun 3, 2018

In the US black is live and white is neutral. Which makes sense for the black in live and white in the first neutral terminal, not sure where the reds come from though.

Deleted member 26818 · Jun 3, 2018

I believe the red could be the second live in their 2phase system, to make 220V.
Although saying that, the last time I connected up some American kit in England, there were two pairs of red and black.
I ended up connecting brown to one of the reds, the other red to a black and then blue to the other black.

Octopus · Jun 3, 2018

If this cooker is brand new, reject it as it's faulty and get the supplier to replace it.

Marvo · Jun 3, 2018

Wire it up the way they suggest. Expose the terminals of any element, fan, indicator lamp (doesn't matter what component, whichever is easiest). Make sure all knobs, dials and switches are in the off position and apply power. Test to see if the component terminals are live on both sides. If they are the manufacturers have miswire the termination block.