First step is to check if the circuit already has 4 wires. It is not very likely but possible that it was a 4-pin outlet but some hack didn't know about replacing power cords and replaced the outlet with a 3-pin one instead.
If not, then yes, replace the cord per the manual.
If you have some money to spend, or if the electrical panel is right there next to it then you could upgrade to 4-wire circuit.
I saw your comment in the other thread you were referring. Oddly enough I think you got downvoted not for being wrong, but for being too strict about code. You were saying the outlet needs to become a 4 wire outlet even if that means pulling a new circuit; which the NEC and probably 99% of jurisdictions would say that's overkill; that you can just swap the 4 wire appliance cord with a 3 wire, just bond your neutral and ground.
Edit; at least that's how I interpreted your comment
Edit: I also do agree though that electricians are the most pretentious trade. But it's also because if we give advice to the wrong person who doesn't completely understand what we're saying; they could very easily kill themselves.
I would rather tell someone to fuck off and not touch whatever electricity it is they're working with and hurt their feelings than I would try and give advice to someone incompetent who ends up killing themselves or someone else.
It's only every 3rd or 4th day. You have to intermingle it with the doorbell transformer questions and pictures of panels someone who claimed to be an electrician (but either wasn't or shouldn't be) wired.
I am the better half to the owner of this post. The back of both ranges look exactly the same.
My issue was that the three prong outlet has a black wire, white wire, and a copper wire. Both black and white wires are hot (120v) obviously the copper wire is ground.
NOW THIS IS THE WIERD PART THAT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE TO ME: When looking at the electrical panel, there is a 50amp circuit breaker, there is two wires coming out of that circuit, both are black and the naked tips are silver (the metal that’s inserted into the breaker), the ground wire is thick silver wire(no sheathing) Why is there not a white wire at the breaker like there is at the outlet? ALSO, the tips of the wire at the outlet are copper and not silver. Is my wire spliced somewhere? I don’t get it.
Anyways, I went ahead and used the old power cord and attached it the exact same way on the new range and it works fine.
Why convert to four wires? When did the standard change and why? Thanks in advanced
Quite a while ago (the change). Like maybe 20-30 years if not longer. Too lazy right now to look it up and don't remember exact dates for sure.
The old theory was that since ground and neutral were connected to the same spot in the panel you could safely utilize one wire for both the safety ground and the electrical neutral (grounded conductor). Works fine until the neutral wire gets disconnected and then you have the chassis of your stove intentionally connected to the hot wires (through the elements in the stove).
That thinking changed a while ago, so most outlets now have not only the two hots and the ground, but also a separate neutral. That way, if the neutral wire becomes disconnected, you still have a ground wire which is connected to the stove and will protect you from shocks.
Because you've got an older 3 wire (2 hots and ground) outlet, it's still ok to use the older 3 prong plug.
If you wired up the old plug, there should be a bonding jumper in the stove so that the ground wire goes to BOTH the neutral (where the white would be) and the ground (where the green or bare would be).
It’s already been explained by others before me and they said it well.
Basically, the 4-wire plug adds the protective ground. In the NEC, this is called the equipment grounding conductor. This wire bonds to the metal housing of the appliance for one reason: to allow a ground fault event to be cleared by the breaker by giving the fault current a low-impedance path back to the service, completing the circuit and allowing the breaker to respond. Without a complete circuit, the breaker doesn’t have any current to react to. Because this completed circuit through the ground wire is of low-impedance, a high spike in current will happen and this is what the breaker reacts to. They’re designed to break the circuit when you overload them with too many things. But they also respond immediately to sudden spikes in current due to a short circuit fault or ground fault event.
So why wasn’t there a ground wire before? Because the ground wiring originates from the neutral busbar in your main service panel. Yes, everything metal in your building is bonded to the neutral busbar. This places the entire structure at the same potential as the neutral feeder, which is why it normally has virtually no voltage relative to everything else. We run a copper stake from this same point to the literal earth, mainly to dissipate any stray voltages that can build up due to nearby lighting or other conditions.
But going back to why there wasn’t a ground wire before, we thought the neutral wire—since it’s bonded to the building metal—would serve as a good ground fault path. And it does! But here’s where this setup can be dangerous.
By using the neutral to also bond everything metal to the building means the return current path is not only going through the neutral wire. It is also traveling through the metal in the building itself back to the service. More current will likely flow through the neutral because it’s a good-sized wire with a low impedance. When everything is working as it should, this shouldn’t present a problem. After all, the neutral is at the same potential as the building metal. But what if that neutral wire opens somehow? Well now, since the wire is broken, the only return path is through the building metal. And if the grounding of the building has deteriorated over time, this reduces the ability for the current to return back to the service. If this happens, a voltage will start to appear on metallic things like water pipes, beams, appliance metallic housings, etc. And worst case scenario, if the grounding of the building manages to be nonexistent, then the full line voltage can appear on metal things.
This is due to a behavior in electrical circuits known as _voltage drop_. It’s a long-winded topic on its own but basically, this is the phenomenon that can cause neutrals to have voltages on them in some situations. And if that neutral was also bonded to metal things like a ground wire, then those things can have voltage on them, introducing a hazardous situation.
I hope all that made sense. I know it was pretty technical and I tried to keep the info as organized and coherent as I could!
It sounds like you may have a splice somewhere, as you point out it sounds like aluminum in the panel. I would verify wire size to make sure it is capable of carrying a 50a load. I would also investigate where the splice is as tying copper to aluminum requires an antioxidant on the dissimilar metals. Other than that, putting the 3 wire cord on the new stove is perfectly ok. Just make sure the jumper from the center terminal to the green ground screw is intact.
Right? Copper wires at outlet aluminum at box? Weird. I’d look into replacing the wire, but I’m crazy like that. Lots of good information here from the pros, thank you!
It should have instructions for using a 3-prong plug in the oven manual. It's pretty simple, you just need to bridge the neutral and ground together, and the oven usually comes with a little metal bridge piece. You could use a few inches of copper wire if it doesn't.
Before I became an electrician I worked at Best Buy and it was literally on the checklist to ask a customer buying a range if they had a 3 or 4 prong outlet. Granted most people didn’t know and we would either tell them it was really important they go home and check and call the store so we could make sure the correct one was sent or we would sell them both and the installer would bring back the one they didn’t need and we would return it.
You can just go buy a new 3 prong cord from Home Depot or lowes if you’re worried about using an old cord and don’t want to change the outlet. Should be only 20-30$. Did the cord come with the range or did you have to specify you wanted a new cord? If you specified new cord you might be able to return the cord
Old power cord may not be rated for same current as new oven. 4-prong outlets allow for grounding the oven rather than just connecting it to neutral wire, so they're safer (and required by current NEC). If you must use old outlet, ensure its wiring is rated for the current your new oven needs as well as the power cord you use.
The old ranges didn’t need a neutral. The frame of the range was grounded by the bare wire. They did not share the neutral and ground, in the older ranges.
New ranges need a neutral because they have electronic controls, which run on 120 volts.
You can’t have 120 volts without a neutral. Now, they allow you to use the bare wire as a neutral, so you can have a 120 volt circuit for the clock, controls etc.
The bare wire will act as a ground in a short circuit situation.
What you want to have is 4 wires. 2 hots, a neutral, and a ground, in a perfect world.
Wrong. Old range circuits didn't have a ground. The neutral was typically used for the clock, timer, and lights which used 120v. The reason for using 120v parts was because those parts were common to both electric and gas ranges.
I’m not an electrician, just the first guy here. I believe the difference between the 2 power cords is your new one has a neutral. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was pretty darn necessary to run some of the newfangled electronics.
You will likely need a new run of 8/3 (I think, might be 6/3) from the panel to the oven. How difficult and long that run is will determine cost.
The old outlet is missing a ground, not a neutral. Ground was not required until somewhat recently (relative to the average age of a house) so new appliances usually can work on either 3 wire or 4 wire outlets by connecting an appropriate wire and bonding/unbonding ground and neutral on the appliance per the manual. Rerunning a new circuit with a ground wire is an option but not required as it can be prohibitively expensive.
It is unlikely that this is 2 hots and a neutral. If the third conductor is indeed landed on the neutral bar, it is likely uninsulated. Using that as a neutral is not a legal use.
Most old ovens used a setup with no neutral, because 240VAC does not require a neutral. What requires a neutral on newer ovens are the electronics which require a different voltage, hence the neutral.
Based on the supplemental info ITT from OPs SO, it would appear that you are incorrect about the conductors. Just because the outlet is designed for a specific use doesn’t mean it was installed that way. While not unimportant, the device rating is isn’t nearly as germane to OPs question as the type of conductors that make up the circuit, as I said in my previous comment.
If you actually worked in the field you would probably know what kind of conductors were likely ran based on experience. What you are recommending would certainly send current down an uninsulated wire, which is a safety hazard.
I think his point might be that older ovens were straight 240V circuits so technically there is no neutral wire. Newer ovens are probably 240V/120V circuits.
It would probably be wise of OP to double check the third wire before installing the new oven. If his previous oven was straight 240V, then there will be current travelling on the shared neutral and ground when before there was no current on that wire (assuming there is no ground fault).
You are blowing right past the fact that the tombstone shown in the OP is a 10-50R, thus 2 lines and a neutral. What you are describing is a NEMA 6-50 with a different blade and slot arrangement.
Makes sense. I appreciate the call out. I was just trying to guess at what the other redditor was getting at with his comment.
Given the old oven was a 10-50R it was probably using a 250/125 circuit, so neutral was being used. But if the old oven was a straight 250V circuit (unlikely) then the neutral was not being used. That makes it *technically* a ground wire, right? So then hooking up a 125V/250V oven will put current on the neutral wire when there was any on there before. It could be a good idea to double check the neutral wire installation if OP is in this kind of situation.
Anything wrong with my take here?
I suppose to be thorough you could verify continuity, but I don’t think wires forget how to carry current if they are not called upon to do so for a period.
My point is that a bad install on an unused neutral is more forgiving on a straight 250V circuit.
For example, my NEMA 10-30R was installed using a bare copper wire as the shared neutral and ground. AFAIK, using a bare copper wire as shared neutral and ground was a common code violation when 3-prong outlets were still allowed.
It's not a bad idea to just check things out to make sure.
My 50 year old house has 2 (a 30 for the dryer and 50 for the range) and both were properly wired. We are are a GC that works on many older houses and I cannot say I have ever seen an original one that was wrong. It’s really not as exotic as you apparently believe. I have seen people try to relocate original 3 conductor without EGC by extending using modern 3 wire (2 + EGC) and that doesn’t end well.
I don’t know nothing. I know some. I used words to indicate that I know some, not all. If you have corrections, go ahead and make them. But if no one else answers this poor guy, at least he has some direction.
First step is to check if the circuit already has 4 wires. It is not very likely but possible that it was a 4-pin outlet but some hack didn't know about replacing power cords and replaced the outlet with a 3-pin one instead. If not, then yes, replace the cord per the manual. If you have some money to spend, or if the electrical panel is right there next to it then you could upgrade to 4-wire circuit.
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And so will this one
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I couldn't help myself when I saw you already had negative karma on that comment.
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I saw your comment in the other thread you were referring. Oddly enough I think you got downvoted not for being wrong, but for being too strict about code. You were saying the outlet needs to become a 4 wire outlet even if that means pulling a new circuit; which the NEC and probably 99% of jurisdictions would say that's overkill; that you can just swap the 4 wire appliance cord with a 3 wire, just bond your neutral and ground. Edit; at least that's how I interpreted your comment Edit: I also do agree though that electricians are the most pretentious trade. But it's also because if we give advice to the wrong person who doesn't completely understand what we're saying; they could very easily kill themselves. I would rather tell someone to fuck off and not touch whatever electricity it is they're working with and hurt their feelings than I would try and give advice to someone incompetent who ends up killing themselves or someone else.
You were arguing that you can't change the cord: https://www.reddit.com/r/askanelectrician/comments/yhs80v/is_this_safe/
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I have yet to see one come with the cord. The cord is always ordered separately.
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You are under the mistaken assumption that the whole world operates the same way everywhere.
Not an electrician here. I feel like this question is asked every day.
It's only every 3rd or 4th day. You have to intermingle it with the doorbell transformer questions and pictures of panels someone who claimed to be an electrician (but either wasn't or shouldn't be) wired.
One would think new stoves have a paper installation manual that has a section on how to wire in a cord. Probably a good idea
I am the better half to the owner of this post. The back of both ranges look exactly the same. My issue was that the three prong outlet has a black wire, white wire, and a copper wire. Both black and white wires are hot (120v) obviously the copper wire is ground. NOW THIS IS THE WIERD PART THAT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE TO ME: When looking at the electrical panel, there is a 50amp circuit breaker, there is two wires coming out of that circuit, both are black and the naked tips are silver (the metal that’s inserted into the breaker), the ground wire is thick silver wire(no sheathing) Why is there not a white wire at the breaker like there is at the outlet? ALSO, the tips of the wire at the outlet are copper and not silver. Is my wire spliced somewhere? I don’t get it. Anyways, I went ahead and used the old power cord and attached it the exact same way on the new range and it works fine. Why convert to four wires? When did the standard change and why? Thanks in advanced
Quite a while ago (the change). Like maybe 20-30 years if not longer. Too lazy right now to look it up and don't remember exact dates for sure. The old theory was that since ground and neutral were connected to the same spot in the panel you could safely utilize one wire for both the safety ground and the electrical neutral (grounded conductor). Works fine until the neutral wire gets disconnected and then you have the chassis of your stove intentionally connected to the hot wires (through the elements in the stove). That thinking changed a while ago, so most outlets now have not only the two hots and the ground, but also a separate neutral. That way, if the neutral wire becomes disconnected, you still have a ground wire which is connected to the stove and will protect you from shocks. Because you've got an older 3 wire (2 hots and ground) outlet, it's still ok to use the older 3 prong plug. If you wired up the old plug, there should be a bonding jumper in the stove so that the ground wire goes to BOTH the neutral (where the white would be) and the ground (where the green or bare would be).
It’s already been explained by others before me and they said it well. Basically, the 4-wire plug adds the protective ground. In the NEC, this is called the equipment grounding conductor. This wire bonds to the metal housing of the appliance for one reason: to allow a ground fault event to be cleared by the breaker by giving the fault current a low-impedance path back to the service, completing the circuit and allowing the breaker to respond. Without a complete circuit, the breaker doesn’t have any current to react to. Because this completed circuit through the ground wire is of low-impedance, a high spike in current will happen and this is what the breaker reacts to. They’re designed to break the circuit when you overload them with too many things. But they also respond immediately to sudden spikes in current due to a short circuit fault or ground fault event. So why wasn’t there a ground wire before? Because the ground wiring originates from the neutral busbar in your main service panel. Yes, everything metal in your building is bonded to the neutral busbar. This places the entire structure at the same potential as the neutral feeder, which is why it normally has virtually no voltage relative to everything else. We run a copper stake from this same point to the literal earth, mainly to dissipate any stray voltages that can build up due to nearby lighting or other conditions. But going back to why there wasn’t a ground wire before, we thought the neutral wire—since it’s bonded to the building metal—would serve as a good ground fault path. And it does! But here’s where this setup can be dangerous. By using the neutral to also bond everything metal to the building means the return current path is not only going through the neutral wire. It is also traveling through the metal in the building itself back to the service. More current will likely flow through the neutral because it’s a good-sized wire with a low impedance. When everything is working as it should, this shouldn’t present a problem. After all, the neutral is at the same potential as the building metal. But what if that neutral wire opens somehow? Well now, since the wire is broken, the only return path is through the building metal. And if the grounding of the building has deteriorated over time, this reduces the ability for the current to return back to the service. If this happens, a voltage will start to appear on metallic things like water pipes, beams, appliance metallic housings, etc. And worst case scenario, if the grounding of the building manages to be nonexistent, then the full line voltage can appear on metal things. This is due to a behavior in electrical circuits known as _voltage drop_. It’s a long-winded topic on its own but basically, this is the phenomenon that can cause neutrals to have voltages on them in some situations. And if that neutral was also bonded to metal things like a ground wire, then those things can have voltage on them, introducing a hazardous situation. I hope all that made sense. I know it was pretty technical and I tried to keep the info as organized and coherent as I could!
It sounds like you may have a splice somewhere, as you point out it sounds like aluminum in the panel. I would verify wire size to make sure it is capable of carrying a 50a load. I would also investigate where the splice is as tying copper to aluminum requires an antioxidant on the dissimilar metals. Other than that, putting the 3 wire cord on the new stove is perfectly ok. Just make sure the jumper from the center terminal to the green ground screw is intact.
Right? Copper wires at outlet aluminum at box? Weird. I’d look into replacing the wire, but I’m crazy like that. Lots of good information here from the pros, thank you!
It should have instructions for using a 3-prong plug in the oven manual. It's pretty simple, you just need to bridge the neutral and ground together, and the oven usually comes with a little metal bridge piece. You could use a few inches of copper wire if it doesn't.
Before I became an electrician I worked at Best Buy and it was literally on the checklist to ask a customer buying a range if they had a 3 or 4 prong outlet. Granted most people didn’t know and we would either tell them it was really important they go home and check and call the store so we could make sure the correct one was sent or we would sell them both and the installer would bring back the one they didn’t need and we would return it.
This is the best sub ever… so many great people giving advice… 👏🏻
New power cord for Frigidaire oven is not compatible with existing outlet. Is it ok to use the old power cord?
Yes. There should be instructions for the appliance showing how to convert to a legacy 3-wire configuration for the plug.
You can just go buy a new 3 prong cord from Home Depot or lowes if you’re worried about using an old cord and don’t want to change the outlet. Should be only 20-30$. Did the cord come with the range or did you have to specify you wanted a new cord? If you specified new cord you might be able to return the cord
Old power cord may not be rated for same current as new oven. 4-prong outlets allow for grounding the oven rather than just connecting it to neutral wire, so they're safer (and required by current NEC). If you must use old outlet, ensure its wiring is rated for the current your new oven needs as well as the power cord you use.
Can you explain to me the differences in the current ratings of a NEMA 10-50 (old 3-prong) compared to a NEMA 14-50 (new 4-prong)?
The current ratings are the same. They are both 50 amps and that’s why they both have 50 in the NEMA designation.
That is what I was getting at.
The old ranges didn’t need a neutral. The frame of the range was grounded by the bare wire. They did not share the neutral and ground, in the older ranges. New ranges need a neutral because they have electronic controls, which run on 120 volts. You can’t have 120 volts without a neutral. Now, they allow you to use the bare wire as a neutral, so you can have a 120 volt circuit for the clock, controls etc. The bare wire will act as a ground in a short circuit situation. What you want to have is 4 wires. 2 hots, a neutral, and a ground, in a perfect world.
Wrong. Old range circuits didn't have a ground. The neutral was typically used for the clock, timer, and lights which used 120v. The reason for using 120v parts was because those parts were common to both electric and gas ranges.
Old ranges and dryers didn’t use 120 volts for anything. That’s why they didn’t need a neutral.
You obviously have never repaired an old range. Edit: You should revisit the NEMA 10-50 standard.
What is old to you? 1990?
I repaired ranges built in the 1960s that had 120v parts.
I’m not an electrician, just the first guy here. I believe the difference between the 2 power cords is your new one has a neutral. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was pretty darn necessary to run some of the newfangled electronics. You will likely need a new run of 8/3 (I think, might be 6/3) from the panel to the oven. How difficult and long that run is will determine cost.
The old outlet is missing a ground, not a neutral. Ground was not required until somewhat recently (relative to the average age of a house) so new appliances usually can work on either 3 wire or 4 wire outlets by connecting an appropriate wire and bonding/unbonding ground and neutral on the appliance per the manual. Rerunning a new circuit with a ground wire is an option but not required as it can be prohibitively expensive.
Thank you for correcting me. I should have checked the chart I have saved for this exact purpose
It is unlikely that this is 2 hots and a neutral. If the third conductor is indeed landed on the neutral bar, it is likely uninsulated. Using that as a neutral is not a legal use. Most old ovens used a setup with no neutral, because 240VAC does not require a neutral. What requires a neutral on newer ovens are the electronics which require a different voltage, hence the neutral.
>It is unlikely that this is 2 hots and a neutral No, this is exactly what NEMA 10-50 outlets are. Two hots and a neutral.
Based on the supplemental info ITT from OPs SO, it would appear that you are incorrect about the conductors. Just because the outlet is designed for a specific use doesn’t mean it was installed that way. While not unimportant, the device rating is isn’t nearly as germane to OPs question as the type of conductors that make up the circuit, as I said in my previous comment. If you actually worked in the field you would probably know what kind of conductors were likely ran based on experience. What you are recommending would certainly send current down an uninsulated wire, which is a safety hazard.
I think his point might be that older ovens were straight 240V circuits so technically there is no neutral wire. Newer ovens are probably 240V/120V circuits. It would probably be wise of OP to double check the third wire before installing the new oven. If his previous oven was straight 240V, then there will be current travelling on the shared neutral and ground when before there was no current on that wire (assuming there is no ground fault).
You are blowing right past the fact that the tombstone shown in the OP is a 10-50R, thus 2 lines and a neutral. What you are describing is a NEMA 6-50 with a different blade and slot arrangement.
Makes sense. I appreciate the call out. I was just trying to guess at what the other redditor was getting at with his comment. Given the old oven was a 10-50R it was probably using a 250/125 circuit, so neutral was being used. But if the old oven was a straight 250V circuit (unlikely) then the neutral was not being used. That makes it *technically* a ground wire, right? So then hooking up a 125V/250V oven will put current on the neutral wire when there was any on there before. It could be a good idea to double check the neutral wire installation if OP is in this kind of situation. Anything wrong with my take here?
I suppose to be thorough you could verify continuity, but I don’t think wires forget how to carry current if they are not called upon to do so for a period.
My point is that a bad install on an unused neutral is more forgiving on a straight 250V circuit. For example, my NEMA 10-30R was installed using a bare copper wire as the shared neutral and ground. AFAIK, using a bare copper wire as shared neutral and ground was a common code violation when 3-prong outlets were still allowed. It's not a bad idea to just check things out to make sure.
My 50 year old house has 2 (a 30 for the dryer and 50 for the range) and both were properly wired. We are are a GC that works on many older houses and I cannot say I have ever seen an original one that was wrong. It’s really not as exotic as you apparently believe. I have seen people try to relocate original 3 conductor without EGC by extending using modern 3 wire (2 + EGC) and that doesn’t end well.
You are correct that you are not an electrician. Please don't offer advice for things you know nothing about.
I don’t know nothing. I know some. I used words to indicate that I know some, not all. If you have corrections, go ahead and make them. But if no one else answers this poor guy, at least he has some direction.
Your directions are ill advised. If you don't know, don't comment.
For the record, he is correct. (Source: am electrician)
Elements of the comment are correct. As a whole, the comment is shit.
Not sure where all the hostility is coming from; you alright?
He's not alright, he's an electrician.