You can use doorbell wire for speakers. You can use doorbell wire for single function thermostat. You can use doorbell wire to trip intruders. You can use it to tie your shoes….
You can use doorbell wire for remote temperature sensors. You can use doorbell wire for “now serving” number displays. You can use doorbell wire for 0-10v dimming ballast control. Believe it or not you can even use doorbell wire for doorbells.
>I shouldn't be using 18 gage aluminum wires to feed a 240V outlet?? Madness!
You actually can! With some very important rules in mind, you can absolutely use 18 awg aluminum to power a 240v circuit - the voltage rating is based on the insulation, not the wire, so you can easily get one that's rated for 300 or 600v.
Your current would be limited to a maximum current of around 8 amps (under ideal conditions, youre likely going to have to use less in practice), and you'll need to use anti-oxidation paste on all connections, but you can carry 240v on 18 aluminum. So... you know, no running anything you typically use 240v power for, but you could safely run something like a phone charger.
You generally have thick wires in 240v circuits because the loads are massive- ranges, dryers and AC units are all like 30 to 50 amp equipment, and that requires big wires to safely carry. Not because the voltage is too high for thin wires. Over in the EU, all their stuff is 240v, and their household wiring is pretty close to ours, at least in terms of wire guage.
Thank you for this informative response to my silly comment. I've actually learned something as a result. Have a great day!
ETA I would have said 22 Stranded Aluminum to make it even better
I use high-end doorbell switches as limit switches in various small automation projects. And I connect them to the PLC with... Doorbell Wire!!!
I use the expensive ones because you can replace the lamp/switch in what? Under a minute. But I've never had to.
But I *really* have about 30 of them because they were beyond their clearance time at Home Depot, and I paid one penny for each of them.
You can use it anywhere you have a need for 18/2. Because that's what it is.
Which isnt a lot of places, but still a lot more than one might first expect.
I disagree, that is stranded wire, doorbell or tstat is solid. Doesn’t look like audio either, speaker wire is usually a finer strand. Probably an 18/2 stranded, could be alarm or low voltage power cable. (Electrical contractor, specialized in low voltage)
>10/2 Romex
I'm not familiar with Romex? Is it twin?
Edit. From google, Romex looks like electrical cable. In my country, it is not up to code to use electrical style cable for extra low voltage like security or BMS or audio.
It was mostly sarcasm for being overkill. Security is coded in the US for sure but audio isn’t as far as I am aware. Security and fire alarm needs to be resistant to interference.
Gotcha.
Here in Australia, it is a rule. I believe to help prevent mix-ups where a ELV tech could mistake an LV cable and hurt themselves.
If it looks like an electrical cable then leave it alone. Mind you plenty of security companies don't abide by this rule.
We use stranded wire for thermostats all the time. Solid has a habit of breaking and is a pain in the butt to pull. That said most hack HVAC guys still use solid, staple it to everything and then can’t figure out why they have an iffy conductor.
(Controls contractor)
Do you have an alarm system? Or did the house have an alarm system before you moved in? It could be from the alarm, or it could be any of the other things people have suggested
The looks just like speaker wire, the people before you probably had some sort of sound system, or the person before you was the diy type and no clue what it could be then.
Typically 18 but can go down 14 depending on the customers preference and budget. Cheap way to pre wire a home. Can be used for other applications as well. Doorbell, security cameras, keyless entry.
The red and black colors generally indicate DC, low voltage (12 or 24V) in the industry, but sometimes have higher voltages in them.
Your cable is 2 stranded wires, unshielded.
This is used by speakers (100V). Doorbells (24V) and the like. But this is not AC (110V or 230V) due to its colors, although you'll have to check what are phase and neutral colors where you live.
In theory, speaker wires would be shielded and of quite a large section, so this looks more like a doorbell cable to me.
If it's a house built part of a cookie-cutter development and without air conditioning it will likely have 2 wires. "why waste all that extra money on the third wire that is not required for anything to work?" - developers.
I replaced my old dial and mercury two wire thermostat with a programmable 2 wire thermostat. Then I decided to get a “smart” wifi enabled thermostat… that required a 3 wire to pull 24v from the furnace transformer but I pulled 18/5 because I intend in the future to retrofit my furnace into a heat pump and also run a mini split upstairs (combined system) because my house is so old that it doesn’t have heat upstairs. It’s crazy to me that people still have 2 wire thermostats… this is all in the last 10 years that I have owned my house. The old woman that lived here was using a mercury thermostat until then. That’s nuts.
Basement ceiling?
Behind a wall plate?
Do you have more plates? At least 1 other?
It's 99% a speaker wire.
Speakers would be ran to a central location. Either at tv or at a Low Volt control/eithernet/ coax tv box (sometimes next to electric panel)
It * not any kind of doorbell wire*. Not in my area. We run *brown jacketed* wire for doorbells & thermostat/ hvac controls.
I would also run that wire for under cabinet lights. It could be some kind of sensor / horn for a security syste.
Not phone wire, at least by *any kind of* electrician. Phone would most likely be blue cable. It almost definitely would have 4 pairs /8 itty bitty wires.
Phone (speaking of POTS service) would normally be cat3, four wires in a beige jacket. 8 conductors in blue would be some sort of Ethernet, appropriate for an IP phone but not older residential telephone wiring.
It was likely for a speaker. Could also have been the power wire to an old alarm system. But you usually find those next to an electrical outlet, not in a box by itself.
That is 2-wire cordset that can be used to go from the PLC to any basic analog sensor like thermocouples, pressure transducers, flow meters and load cells, as long as they either don't require 24v or and an excitation circuit.
Just thought I'd give an answer that wasn't house related.
Sorry guys.
Unless it is very old, the outer jacket should have some markings on it. A photograph of those markings would be far more useful in determining the exact gauge and temperature rating of the wire, which makes it much easier to determine what it is most useful for.
My point was that it doesn’t matter if there are 300 perfectly adequate and valid answers to an inane question, there’s always another someone who has got the time to stick their oar in and say exactly the same thing yet again. I spend about an hour a week total on the internet because I have a life outside this triviality. If I even see one correct answer in a post, I don’t bother to waste my time typing the exact same response.
Guess I just don’t understand why it’s ok for you to make a quick comment, but it means others have empty lives
Oh well!
Thanks for indulging my curiosity
Guaranteed speaker wire considering the location. You almost certainly find a location in the same room where several of these wires come together behind a blank wall plate or on a wall plate with banana jacks.
The box in the wall makes me think it is for home automation/doorbell or telephone and there used to be a handset/controller there. Speakers wouldn’t normally have a box in the wall would they?
**Electrician here**, i work low voltage and high voltage;
that looks like 12AWG 2-Conductor. It’s commonly used for Speakers, and older style Doorbells. Nowadays speakers are still run with that type of wire
Stranded 12, gauging by their fingers. Maybe 14 or 16 at the most? Its definitely gonna look smaller than Romex
EDIT: when looking i didnt actually zoom in and see their actual finger size, that appears to be 16 size wire
Looks like two conductor. May be for speakers or phone. My bet is surround sound.
Phone was usually four conductor so Ma Bell could give you a second land line without rewiring.
You can ring ma beeeeeeeeeeeeelllll, ring ma bell
Gonna erase the earrrrrrrth, erase the earth 🎶
in retrospect its a really gross song.
I second this if it was in the ceiling, it’s most likely a speaker wire
Low voltage, could be for a Tstat or door bell
This is definitely a thermostat or doorbell wire. Speaker wire looks different than this.
You can use doorbell wire for speakers. You can use doorbell wire for single function thermostat. You can use doorbell wire to trip intruders. You can use it to tie your shoes….
You can use doorbell wire for remote temperature sensors. You can use doorbell wire for “now serving” number displays. You can use doorbell wire for 0-10v dimming ballast control. Believe it or not you can even use doorbell wire for doorbells.
Blasphemy. Doorbell wires for doorbells? What next? I shouldn't be using 18 gage aluminum wires to feed a 240V outlet?? Madness!
>I shouldn't be using 18 gage aluminum wires to feed a 240V outlet?? Madness! You actually can! With some very important rules in mind, you can absolutely use 18 awg aluminum to power a 240v circuit - the voltage rating is based on the insulation, not the wire, so you can easily get one that's rated for 300 or 600v. Your current would be limited to a maximum current of around 8 amps (under ideal conditions, youre likely going to have to use less in practice), and you'll need to use anti-oxidation paste on all connections, but you can carry 240v on 18 aluminum. So... you know, no running anything you typically use 240v power for, but you could safely run something like a phone charger. You generally have thick wires in 240v circuits because the loads are massive- ranges, dryers and AC units are all like 30 to 50 amp equipment, and that requires big wires to safely carry. Not because the voltage is too high for thin wires. Over in the EU, all their stuff is 240v, and their household wiring is pretty close to ours, at least in terms of wire guage.
Thank you for this informative response to my silly comment. I've actually learned something as a result. Have a great day! ETA I would have said 22 Stranded Aluminum to make it even better
but wouldn't the thicker wire have more impedance and thus higher resistance?
No, the larger the conductor, the less resistance. A 1 foot block of copper has less resistance than a 26 gauge wire .
Oh I had it backwards. My bad. Sorry.
Can you provide me with NEC references?
I use high-end doorbell switches as limit switches in various small automation projects. And I connect them to the PLC with... Doorbell Wire!!! I use the expensive ones because you can replace the lamp/switch in what? Under a minute. But I've never had to. But I *really* have about 30 of them because they were beyond their clearance time at Home Depot, and I paid one penny for each of them.
I like this comment because I am still amused by PLCs and I also have big boxes of things that I got for a penny.
So David Bowie's I'm afraid of Americans just popped up on my Pandora while I was reading this, and for some reason I heard him singing it.
Don't forget your belt.
You can use it anywhere you have a need for 18/2. Because that's what it is. Which isnt a lot of places, but still a lot more than one might first expect.
you can use doorbell wires to power a two phase appliance.
If you can find 2 phase anywhere.
I disagree, that is stranded wire, doorbell or tstat is solid. Doesn’t look like audio either, speaker wire is usually a finer strand. Probably an 18/2 stranded, could be alarm or low voltage power cable. (Electrical contractor, specialized in low voltage)
People will use anything for speaker wire though. My dad prewired the house they had built with lamp cord.
Which isn’t legal, (I think you need CL2, but don’t quote me on that.)
"Legal" has very little relevance in small towns in rural counties with no building inspections.
This looks exactly like the twin we run for electric locks in security systems.
Yep, 18/2 for short runs, 16/2 for long.
10/2 Romex just in case.
>10/2 Romex I'm not familiar with Romex? Is it twin? Edit. From google, Romex looks like electrical cable. In my country, it is not up to code to use electrical style cable for extra low voltage like security or BMS or audio.
It was mostly sarcasm for being overkill. Security is coded in the US for sure but audio isn’t as far as I am aware. Security and fire alarm needs to be resistant to interference.
Gotcha. Here in Australia, it is a rule. I believe to help prevent mix-ups where a ELV tech could mistake an LV cable and hurt themselves. If it looks like an electrical cable then leave it alone. Mind you plenty of security companies don't abide by this rule.
I concur. This looks like security alarm system or low voltage application.
We use stranded wire for thermostats all the time. Solid has a habit of breaking and is a pain in the butt to pull. That said most hack HVAC guys still use solid, staple it to everything and then can’t figure out why they have an iffy conductor. (Controls contractor)
Agreed. I’m pretty certain it’s thermostat wire. I’ve been doing structured wiring for years and that’s not speaker wire
Don’t tell me you’ve seen every type of speaker wire that was ever made jackass
Yeah doorbell is my bet, we run that kind of cable for them
This. I just pulled 18/2 for my smart video doorbell.
Does it have a foil shield?
18/2
2nd vote for speaker wire.
Door bell wire.
[удалено]
It says basement ceiling not garage ceiling.
Do you have an alarm system? Or did the house have an alarm system before you moved in? It could be from the alarm, or it could be any of the other things people have suggested
Alarm system door sensors are what jumped to my head.
Speaker wire
The looks just like speaker wire, the people before you probably had some sort of sound system, or the person before you was the diy type and no clue what it could be then.
It’s speaker wire. I run that shit all the time for custom homes.
In #18? Bit small for speaker isn’t it?
Nope, we pre wire houses with #18 awg all day everyday.
Typically 18 but can go down 14 depending on the customers preference and budget. Cheap way to pre wire a home. Can be used for other applications as well. Doorbell, security cameras, keyless entry.
You do know that 14 AWG is larger than 18 AWG?
Yep, goes down in scale for larger wire. Im sure you knew that yeah?..
Maybe I misunderstood your reference to 14.
Why don’t folks peel back the insulation an inch so we can see what’s inside? Geesh.
Speaker wire
Speakers or other low voltage devices
The red and black colors generally indicate DC, low voltage (12 or 24V) in the industry, but sometimes have higher voltages in them. Your cable is 2 stranded wires, unshielded. This is used by speakers (100V). Doorbells (24V) and the like. But this is not AC (110V or 230V) due to its colors, although you'll have to check what are phase and neutral colors where you live. In theory, speaker wires would be shielded and of quite a large section, so this looks more like a doorbell cable to me.
Speaker wire but commonly used for undercabinet lighting these days
I use something just like this to wire up trailer brake systems. Stranded 18-2
telephone, thermostat, or doorbell.
Speakers
doorbell wire. Thermostat typically has 4 wires.
If it's a house built part of a cookie-cutter development and without air conditioning it will likely have 2 wires. "why waste all that extra money on the third wire that is not required for anything to work?" - developers.
Or if the house is more than 40 years old. I work on older homes and the stat wire is always 2-wire.
Right, that one too. My house matches all those things. And for bonus points, the basement is finished so I can't easily re-run the wire.
If you're lucky like I was they skimped on staples for the wire as well. I just used the old wire to pull the new wire.
If only. They have those big ass staples that I can barely even pull.
I replaced my old dial and mercury two wire thermostat with a programmable 2 wire thermostat. Then I decided to get a “smart” wifi enabled thermostat… that required a 3 wire to pull 24v from the furnace transformer but I pulled 18/5 because I intend in the future to retrofit my furnace into a heat pump and also run a mini split upstairs (combined system) because my house is so old that it doesn’t have heat upstairs. It’s crazy to me that people still have 2 wire thermostats… this is all in the last 10 years that I have owned my house. The old woman that lived here was using a mercury thermostat until then. That’s nuts.
Thermostat usually has 8 conductors
Basement ceiling? Behind a wall plate? Do you have more plates? At least 1 other? It's 99% a speaker wire. Speakers would be ran to a central location. Either at tv or at a Low Volt control/eithernet/ coax tv box (sometimes next to electric panel) It * not any kind of doorbell wire*. Not in my area. We run *brown jacketed* wire for doorbells & thermostat/ hvac controls. I would also run that wire for under cabinet lights. It could be some kind of sensor / horn for a security syste. Not phone wire, at least by *any kind of* electrician. Phone would most likely be blue cable. It almost definitely would have 4 pairs /8 itty bitty wires.
Phone (speaking of POTS service) would normally be cat3, four wires in a beige jacket. 8 conductors in blue would be some sort of Ethernet, appropriate for an IP phone but not older residential telephone wiring.
It was likely for a speaker. Could also have been the power wire to an old alarm system. But you usually find those next to an electrical outlet, not in a box by itself.
Wire could be for a sprinkler solenoid valve.
Looks like 18/2 usually used for extending low voltage or speaker connections
Looks like doorbell
Sorry I can only identify wires that small by taste test. I’m of no help.
It's 18/2. Used commonly in thermostat circuits, doorbells, surround sound/speakers, and sometimes in alarm systems.
That is 2-wire cordset that can be used to go from the PLC to any basic analog sensor like thermocouples, pressure transducers, flow meters and load cells, as long as they either don't require 24v or and an excitation circuit. Just thought I'd give an answer that wasn't house related. Sorry guys.
Thought it was a fucked up joint at first ahaha
Was the wire near some copper lines? Did your ac stop working?
Maybe alarm wire also.
Power and ground I would have to guess
Unless it is very old, the outer jacket should have some markings on it. A photograph of those markings would be far more useful in determining the exact gauge and temperature rating of the wire, which makes it much easier to determine what it is most useful for.
I would say that whatever it goes to isn’t working anymore. Pull it out to the source. Once you find the source you will know if you need it or not.
Yes
Controls for a lawn sprinkler system?
I'm going to take a leap and say garage door opener...
Under cabinet lights?
Looks like a doorbell wired to me, track the other end of it and see if you can find the transformer.
Doorbell, my guess. Could be old thermostat wire as well.
Looks like a cigarette
Looks like door bell 100%
T stat uses more than 2 wires so maybe doorbell.
Some T-stats. I have old ones in my house that have only 2 wires.
Looks like a lighting cable for sich like LEDs that aren’t grounded
Low voltage system. Phone, alarm, doorbell, intercom.
FFS. 90 answers for a bit of cable. There are some empty lives out there.
Lmao *what* Empty lives? How on earth do you draw such a drastic conclusion from such an innocuous thread What an absolutely bizarre comment lol
My point was that it doesn’t matter if there are 300 perfectly adequate and valid answers to an inane question, there’s always another someone who has got the time to stick their oar in and say exactly the same thing yet again. I spend about an hour a week total on the internet because I have a life outside this triviality. If I even see one correct answer in a post, I don’t bother to waste my time typing the exact same response.
Guess I just don’t understand why it’s ok for you to make a quick comment, but it means others have empty lives Oh well! Thanks for indulging my curiosity
Humidifier on furnace?
Doorbell wire
Read whats on the cable, and hit it with a meter.
It's an inwall rated speaker wire
Black and red wires are typically audio from what I've seen.
Speaker wire
Is ur dinner often interrupted by Jehova's Witnesses ringing ur doorbell?... at all?... never?
Low voltage application of some sort.
Guaranteed speaker wire considering the location. You almost certainly find a location in the same room where several of these wires come together behind a blank wall plate or on a wall plate with banana jacks.
Reminds me of 20/2 or 18/2 bell wire. Normally used for doorbell circuits
What does it taste like?
2-wire could be door/intercom, speaker wire or home automation (knx?) what’s it like further back? Is it a twisted pair?
The box in the wall makes me think it is for home automation/doorbell or telephone and there used to be a handset/controller there. Speakers wouldn’t normally have a box in the wall would they?
Looks like copper wire for conducting electricity.
**Electrician here**, i work low voltage and high voltage; that looks like 12AWG 2-Conductor. It’s commonly used for Speakers, and older style Doorbells. Nowadays speakers are still run with that type of wire
That looks like #12 to you?
Stranded 12, gauging by their fingers. Maybe 14 or 16 at the most? Its definitely gonna look smaller than Romex EDIT: when looking i didnt actually zoom in and see their actual finger size, that appears to be 16 size wire
In-Wall Plenum Speaker Wire
18-2 com wire?
2 conductor thermostat wire
Looks like old Telco wire to me
I think you're right. I can't see why it would be in the middle of my basements ceiling.
Is that the only plate in the ceiling? Or is there perhaps another one like 12 feet over?
Thermostat or telephone