- Wire color codes are uniform throughout a home's electrical system. This means that the wire colors in a fixture like a ceiling fan follow the same color scheme as the overall house wiring.
Wires that carry electrical current from a fuse or circuit breaker to a device that uses the current may be any color except white, green or natural gray. The most common wire color for this purpose is black, but blue and red are also common.
The white wire is frequently called the neutral wire, but this is not technically correct. The NEC calls the white wire the grounded conductor because in the main fuse box or main service panel it is connected to an earth ground. Natural gray is also allowed to be used as a grounded conductor.
Ground wires may be either green or bare of insulation and they are also connected to an earth ground. - The black and white wires in a ceiling fan each carry current. The black ceiling fan wire connects to a switched hot wire, which should also be black but may be another color. From the switch, the house hot wire connects to the circuit breaker or fuse that protects the circuit. The black wire's function is to carry current to the ceiling fan motor and lights from the circuit breaker.
The white wire may not be on a switch. The white wire in the ceiling fan connects to a white house wire and goes back to the service panel or fuse box. The white wire connects to earth ground only in the main service panel. The purpose of the white wire is to complete the electrical circuit and carry current back to the service panel from the ceiling fan. - The NEC specifies that wiring must be polarized to prevent electric shocks to the user. If the switch controlling a ceiling fan is on the hot wire, then turning off the switch means that current is no longer supplied to the ceiling fan.
The reverse is not true however. If a switch were placed on the white wire, voltage would still be present at the ceiling fan even if the switch were turned off. The fan would not turn because the switch would break the circuit, but a person touching a light socket on the ceiling fan while changing a light bulb could receive a potentially life-threatening electric shock. - Electricians follow a specific order when wiring a ceiling fan, fixture or other device. The first wire connected is the bare or green ground wire. This adds a measure of safety to the fixture immediately. If the circuit were to become energized unexpectedly--e.g. someone turned the circuit breaker on--the ground wire provides the current a safe path to ground.
The white grounded conductor is wired second. This provides yet another path to ground since the grounded conductor connects to earth ground in the main fuse box or service panel.
The black or colored hot wire is wired last. - Sometimes a white wire has to deliver current. A ceiling fan might have the house wiring deliver power directly to the fan's wiring box. A switch must be included in the circuit so a length of sheathed cable runs from the fan wiring box to the switch wiring box. The sheathed cable has one black and one white wire plus a bare ground wire.
The black wire connects to the house hot wire and to the switch. The white wire connects to the switch and to the ceiling fan black wire. The white insulation should be colored black with a permanent marker, black tape or black paint. This is not NEC code, but is an additional safety measure.
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