Wiring an electric dryer

[Jim Hill]

Folks,

I'm looking for advice here. Previously, the electric dryer hooked into a 3 prong outlet. New house has a four prong outlet. How do I hook up the dryer? I'm assuming I need to replace the electric cord from the dryer with a four wire cord. Which of the wires do I not use? The three wire cord , the wires were all the same color. The four wire cord has multi-colored wires.
Thanks for your help.

Jim

[jerry nazard]

Jim,

Black and red are hots: on your old cord they went to the top two prongs - the white is neutral and went to the old cord's center prong. Your new four wire cord is red and black to hots, white to neutral, and green to chassis ground. Use all four wires. If you don't feel comfortable changing the cords, get someone else that is, or call a sparky. I don't know about you, but I HATE getting shocked.

Best!

-Jerry

[Jim Hill]

Thanks Jerry!

Jim

[Tom Veatch]

Check a NEMA Plug/Receptacle chart for the configuration of the plug and receptacle being used. (Google "NEMA Straight Blade Chart").

It's probably a 30amp circuit which would make it a NEMA 14-30 configuration. If that's the case, here's the configuration.

14-30R14-30P


You can determine the proper wiring from the picture. X and Y are the red and black hot wires. Doesn't matter which wire goes to which blade. W is the neutral white wire and G is the grounded green/bare wire.

[Mike SoRelle]

Most of the appliance conversion cords that you purchase in order to connect to the new style, also have excellent instructions on how they should be connected generally with pictures of the terminal blocks and color indications/variations.

I wasn't aware their documentation was so good until the MIL moved a couple of years ago and discovered her plug wouldn't fit, so I told her she needed to go get a new cord and then she could call me back so I could tell her what went where.

When she called back a couple of hours later, she had already changed it out by herself, and she is by no means electrically savvy.