You may find yourself with either a 3 wire or 4 wire electric dryer or a 3 wire or 4 wire outlet.
Electric dryer plug wiring.
An electric dryer on the other hand heats the air with electric heating elements and runs on 240 volt current which requires a much different outlet receptacle and a special heavy duty appliance cord with a unique plug.
Dryer cords are usually a maximum of six feet long as the code requires that an outlet be close to the connected appliance.
In order to attach the wire clamp to an electric range receptacle insert half of the clamp into the receptacle box hole.
Electrical wiring for a dryer power cord has a typical 240 volt electric power cord with 3 wire and 4 wire wiring configurations many people may experience the situation of trying to make a older dryer work with an new four wire receptacle.
This article will explain what options you have to get your dryer wired and running.
Lets look a how the electric dryer is wired and what to do if your cord does not match the plug.
The nec requires that dryers have a dedicated circuit with a minimum of 30 amps.
Wiring a dryer wiring a 240v dryer.
The 120 volt service is for the dryer s timers sensors and other electronics while the 240 volt service supplies power to the heating elements.
The ground is now a dedicated wire also.
Yellow wire white the 4 prong dryer outlet wiring diagram above is ran with a 10 3 with ground cable.
A gas dryer plugs into an ordinary 120 volt electrical outlet and it has a cord fitted with an ordinary appliance plug.
See an electric dryer installation with a typical 240 volt electric power cord wiring system.
This creates a separate return path for unused current.
Wiring for a 4 prong dryer receptacle.
The code requirement doesn t apply to houses built before 1996 though.
A 4 prong dryer outlet is wired as a 120 240 volt circuit.
Due to changes in the national electrical code nec recommended wiring for electric clothes dryer outlets changed in 1996 before the change dryer outlets were 3 slot devices that accepted 3 prong cords.
But if you notice both the neutral and the ground wires both connect to the same ground bar inside the panel box.
The dryer s equipment ground case ground was connected to the neutral conductor in the dryer cord and the household circuit.
As you can see there is now an added dedicated neutral.
This part of the clamp will be the one with the smaller holes.
Now install the other half of the clamp into the hole on the top side of the wire.
After this update all dryer receptacles are required to have four wires instead of three.
Place it on the bottom of the wire.
If your dryer draws 30 amps like most dryers the dryer wire gauge is 10 gauge.
When wiring a receptacle for an electric dryer or hardwiring a dryer to the house circuitry the number of amps the dryer draws determines both the size of the circuit breaker you need in the main panel as well as the dryer wire size.
