The Christiansons Easy Guide to Electrical Panel Labels – Understanding Your System

It’s important to understand your electrical system to keep yourself safe. This includes knowing what circuits control which lights and receptacles in your home.

The sizing, color, and information on electrical panel labels must meet regulatory standards to ensure they’re legible and durable enough for your application. These regulations are outlined in guidelines like the NFPA 70 / NEC 2020.

1. Identify Your System

Electrical panel labels are an important component of any comprehensive facilities management program. Whether you manage a small business or a large industrial plant, it is crucial to understand your system in order to properly identify and label its components. Label selections should be based on a thorough review of regulatory standards, hardware layouts, and environment needs.

Clearly identifying your electrical system will help you keep it safe and operating at peak performance. This is especially critical during emergencies when seconds count and trying to figure out which breaker or fuse controls a particular light, appliance or receptacle can be dangerous.

Additionally, properly labelling your circuits will make it much easier for you to work with contractors when performing renovations. Providing them with a complete directory of your electrical panel will save you hours of time while also ensuring that all circuits are fully accounted for. This will help ensure that no new circuits are added that could cause an overload or fire hazard.

2. Identify Your Breakers

Ideally, the busbars in your panel will have labels that match up with devices (and corresponding breaker settings) on the DC side of the system. Unfortunately, many panels have re-assigned breakers as part of renovations, and it is common for previous owners to splice in wires to obtain power to new items. It is therefore best to trace every set of wires from the panel to their destination, and make a list.

Often, you can identify which room a device belongs to by looking at the circuit numbers on the panel and turning off breaker settings one at a time. This can be done in conjunction with a helper, positioning one person at the panel and the other in each room, communicating via walkie-talkie to see when each light/appliance/electronic turns off.

There are a number of different regulations that dictate electrical labeling and documentation within facilities. The most prominent regulatory bodies include OSHA and ANSI. These organizations provide detailed guidelines on sizing, color, and information requirements that you can use to select the ideal electrical panel labels for your facility.

3. Identify Your Wiring

The most important aspect of an electrical panel is its wiring. It is crucial that every wire on a circuit is labeled to indicate its status and use, and that this information is available in a comprehensive directory.

The typical AC wiring for 110 volts is white for neutral, black for hot, and green for ground (220-volt AC lines have a second hot wire, colored red). Wires should be enclosed in common sheathing and distinguished at each end with a label or tape. Look for signs of previous remarking on the ends of individual wires (colored marker, paint pen, or heat-shrink) and note them in your diagram.

The design of specific labels will depend largely on regulatory requirements, equipment specifications, and durability needs. However, a review of these regulations in conjunction with your hardware layout should provide the framework for ensuring consistent, effective marking of all your equipment and panels. This will support your facility’s safety program and keep employees and contractors informed.

4. Identify Your Outlets

There are a variety of different outlets in most homes, including switches and light fixtures. Some of them are hidden behind furniture and can be hard to find. Electrical product suppliers like D&F Liquidators recommend doing a walkthrough of the home to locate every outlet and switch, testing them to ensure that they’re grounded and identifying their location using an electrical index. This makes it easier for an electrician to work in that space and helps keep future residents of the house from being confused by old receptacles.

The selection of electrical labeling in an industrial setting can be a bit more complex. There are various regulations and guidelines that should be consulted in order to select the most appropriate label for the hardware within any given facility. These include Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standards, ANSI standards, National Electrical Code (NEC), and NFPA 70 / NEC 2020. In addition, equipment specifications and durability needs should also be taken into account when selecting a particular label.