# Oven: 2 black wires to 4 help



## rjniles (Feb 5, 2007)

Make sure the breaker is off. The cable from the panel you are describing is SE cable; 2 insulated conductors wrapped with a bare neutral. You do not have a true ground wire, this is an older grandfathered 3 wire standard. The bare neutral is used as the ground.
Connect the white and ground from the oven to the bare neutral wire from the panel.

It would be better to run a new 4 wire cable from the panel.

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## joed (Mar 13, 2005)

You need a new feed from the panel. Your old feed was 240 volts only. Your new feed needs 120/240 volt feed.


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## rjniles (Feb 5, 2007)

joed said:


> You need a new feed from the panel. Your old feed was 240 volts only. Your new feed needs 120/240 volt feed.


A 3 wire feed will provide 120/240. Not ideal but it is allowed.


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## joed (Mar 13, 2005)

Yo can't use a bare ground as a neutral.


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## rjniles (Feb 5, 2007)

joed said:


> Yo can't use a bare ground as a neutral.


He does not have a bare ground. He has a SE cable with a concentric neutral.

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## joed (Mar 13, 2005)

rjniles said:


> He does not have a bare ground. He has a SE cable with a concentric neutral.


Where does he say that? All I see a two blacks and an unprotected ground. That means bare to me.


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## rjniles (Feb 5, 2007)

joed said:


> Where does he say that? All I see a two blacks and an unprotected ground. That means bare to me.


Are you aware of another cable with that configuration that was ever used as a range cable?

Poster, add a picture of the cable to confirm.

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## Brocko6 (Aug 13, 2020)

You should be able to wire it like left side of this picture. In your case the red wire is also black. However, updating the cable running from the breaker panel from 3 to 4 wire and following the right side 4-wire hookup would be best up to current code way to wire a 240v appliance. Your double oven is probably on a 50A breaker? The 6/3 nm cable isn't exactly cheap just as a warning.


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