Hint: pick a color, any color

I spotted this mess when I removed the cover for this light pole. Perhaps the installer ran out of black, red, or blue conductors and thought it would be fine to run white wires everywhere and simply use different color tape to mark each white wire. Let’s classify this installation as an “Epic Fail!”

Using white wires as ungrounded conductors or equipment grounding conductors (EGCs) is prohibited by Sec. 200.7(A). For cables, using white wires or gray wires for ungrounded conductors is permitted by Sec. 200.7(C)(1), where the white wire is reidentified with a color other than white, gray, or green to indicate its use as an ungrounded conductor. Reidentifying white wires for use as ungrounded conductors installed in raceways is never permitted. This installer even used white wires for the EGCs, mistakenly thinking it would be compliant if green tape was used to identify them. Wrong again! Section 200.7(C) does not permit this application either.

The correct color conductors must be pulled into these raceways. Using black, red, blue or even pink, purple, or peach colored conductors would have been a much better choice than using white wires everywhere.