Common house wiring colors. Turn your breaker box off.

Electrical Wire Colors And What They All Mean Solved Bob Vila
How to identify neutral wire in light switch. This is usually only attached if your old switch is a smart switch or certain dimmer switches. How to identify a hot neutral and ground wires using digital multimeter and a probe. The black wire is the hot wire which carries the electricity from the breaker panel into the switch or light source. The white wire is the neutral wire which takes any unused electricity and current and sends them back to the breaker panel. Most likely the neutral wire is white and the hot wire is red or black but test to make sure. How to identify live wire with mulitmeter.
How to identify neutral and ground wires. If its not attached to your old switch look for a cluster of white wires bundled together in the back of your wall box. The brilliant control requires a neutral wire to install. A white wire or group of white wires mean theres a strong chance the box contains neutrals. Remove the trim plate covering the switch. Take out the screws from the switch.
In this diagram the source for the circuit is at the light fixture and the two switches come after. On outlets in the middle of the circuit the neutral wire makes it possible for the current to move through the outlet to other outlets on the circuit and back to your service panel. Checking the switch box. There it is spliced to the black wire running to the second switch box which is then connected to the common terminal on sw2. When a white wire is used for hot like. Two wire cable runs from the light to sw1 and 3 wire cable runs between sw1 and sw2.
On an outlet or fixture thats on the end of the run the neutral wire sends the current back to the source. How to identify hot wire. Identify the neutral wire in the fixture by looking at the wires. Pull out the existing switch so you can examine the wires. Heres a rundown of electrical wires. The hot source wire is spliced at the light box to the white cable wire running to the first switch box.
3 way switch wiring with light first. It is usually a white wire.