I just moved into first house I bought. I buy a 4 prong dryer wire for my new whirlpool dryer. I used a 3 prong at my last residence and it started fine. But with 4 prong now when I hook up the neutral wire to pair it with the other neutral in the middle terminal, and put the ground wire hooked to the ground. It wont start. I've been reading you dont hook up the neutral with the ground, well I tried it that way just to see and the dryer started up… any suggestions? Hope I described this right for yall!
Dryer wiring start problem
dryer
Related Solutions
DO NOT connect the ground wire to the grounded (neutral) conductor, as this could lead to current flowing through the body of the dryer (and potentially through you).
The installation guide for the dryer will have wiring instructions for both 3, and 4 wire configurations. Check the manufacturers documentation for proper wiring, but I would say the first image is likely correct.
Instructions from random Maytag Installation Instructions (PDF)
3 Wire Cord
4 Wire Cord
Update:
After doing some research, and looking at dryer wiring diagrams. It turns out that the green/yellow wire is not a ground wire, it is a neutral to case bonding wire. When this wire is not in use (in a 4-wire installation for example), it is simply connected to the neutral terminal and is unused.
Solved the problem. Figured out that there was a potential between neutral and ground of 6v. They weren't bonded at the box. Thanks for your help!
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Best Answer
This wiring is insane. It's so wrong it's not even funny.
They used 14/2 cable, which is half the necessary size, and will start a fire if used to power a dryer.
They also wired it up simply matching colors to colors. It is obvious that the person who wired it never actually tried it, and good thing too.
I get the impression that they did this to meet some statutory requirement, such as a buyer demand/seller commitment to fit an electric dryer outlet. Either the seller DIYed it in a hurry without even thinking about the four terminals, or intentionally faked it to get to closing.
However, if they were exceptionally dumb, they may have put 240V across hot and neutral, which would have fried the dryer's motor and controls.
If the unit was used at all, it may be that someone had a gas dryer that someone had installed a NEMA 14-30 plug onto (which is wrong to do), and then they moved here, and put this in to match the weird wiring on their gas dryer.
Regardless, this is entirely unfit for service for an electric dryer. The receptacle is salvageable. The cable is not. It will need to be re-pulled with a 10/3 (black white red bare) NM (Romex) or UF type.