Skip, The codes said for a long time neutral is the white wire? and hot is the black wire. You can check that by using a meter connected to a copper water line where the hot should be 120 and neutral = nothing [maybe needing a very long wire to reach the water line ] ?but? if the wiring has no ground wire? things get messy as the an ungrounded polarized receptacle is likely hard to get.? You should most likely ?install a 3-wire cable. I am too far out of date to know what the codes allow now when updating older houses.

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