Does he work residential or commercial? When we moved into a newly constructed building at work in ~2005, all the outlets were ground up. I’d be real surprised if new *homes *were wired that way, though.
the chain linkage is metal wire.
With the ground down, the socket looks like a little face. I think this would make the socket more attractive for children to investigate and play with it.
That’s why they invented safety plugs: so responsible parents could prevent that sort of adventure. On the plus side, they’d only investigate once.
When I did the inspection for the house we had built, I mentioned that most of the outlets in the house were “ground down” but several were “ground up”. He informed me that the “ground” up outlets were the “switchable” outlets. That is to say, the power to that outlet was controlled by a wall switch.
Now, in any room f my house, I can easily tell which outlets are “normal” and which are switch operated. Ther eis one in each bedroom, for example.
Not sure if that’s convention, code or just a good idea.
If you feel a need to mount the outlet vertically I’d go ground wire up, but around here we mount them horizontally so that, if a plug loosens and something metallic falls in the gap, it only contacts one plug and no circuit is made. It took a while for producers of nightlights and Glade Plug-Ins to figure out why they weren’t selling that well around Chicago and start offering rotating plugs so their products weren’t installed sideways.
I was just assuming the sideways outlets were in Australia or something. I had no idea parts of the US used that convention. Is there a map anywhere of where this is typical?
Just my two cents:
- Where a manufacturer has had to take a decision on a design that required a specific ortientation, most have selected down.
- Plug-in modules like X-10 and Insteon assume a ground down orientation.
- Plug-in adapters (power packs), either 3-prong or Large spade neutral, assume down.
- Power bars with angular power plugs work best with ground down, otherwise you have to plug on top with wire looping upwards.
- A three prong power plug was designed to have a flat spot on top where the thumb can rest nicely and the index finger curl underneat, this allow the safest position to plug/unplug.
- The ground on the bottom makes the live blades the most visible, hence the safest to plug-in/plug-out.
- When unplugging a wire from a receptacle, it is common for people to apply a slight upward motion/angle. With the ground up this augments the chances of breaking the plastic, above the ground pin, on he top outlet.
I have seen this many times in ground up installs, I have never seen this in a ground down installation. - I have heard stories of paperclips falling off the edge of a desk and lodging themselves between the hot and netral in a partially pulled plug…
My own non-scientific attempt using hundreds of papeclip has had every paper-clip bounce off the cover plate and miss the mark.
By the way there is no guaranty that with the ground up it can’t loge itself betwwen any of the prongs. - I have never witnessed, known or heard from somone who witnessed an occurance of a metal object (paper clip or other) falling and cause a short, let alone cause a situation that was a safety issue that warrants supperceeding all the points stated above.
That’s a British plug, isn’t it?
There’s a few problems I have with American outlets, beyond that the fact that there’s no standard way to mount them.
- Current standards don’t reflect the reality of the number of devices, especially low voltage devices, that a modern household has. I shouldn’t have to have to use multiple power strips chocked with wall warts to power all my routers, phone charges, etc.
- There aren’t shutters, recessed housing, insulated pins, and other passive safety features of European designs.
- There’s no cheap, easy, and safe way to dim a lamp plugged into an outlet from the associated wall control.
I realize it’s a zombie question, but about the only way to mount a receptacle sideways is to have a 4x4 square box in the wall and to mount the mud ring sideways. I don’t think I’ve ever seen “sideways” plastic nail-on boxes.
I don’t know current practice there, but Chicago used to have its own code that went above and beyond the NEC. Romex was not allowed, even for residential use, “BX” was tolerated in short bits, and almost everything was run in conduit, so using square boxes was the norm.
When I moved from Chicago to California, it took a while to get used to receptacles that weren’t sideways.
We do have receptacles with shutters now, and they are required for new work.
Most common: under bathroom medicine cabinets or mirrors.
Commercial electrical always seems to put the ground pin up. Look in any office, fast food, or commercial bldg. That seems the most common. I setup a lot of computers and printers at work. I always hold the surge protector plug ground up when I’m feeling around under a table or desk. I often can only glimpse the wall receptacle and plug in by feel.
Residential the ground is down. Like a face with the ground as the mouth.
No idea why. But thats what I’ve seen repeatedly all my life.
Including low-voltage!
I guess I was vaguely aware of that. That solves the “toddler sticking a fork into the socket” problem, but it’s still too easy too touch live pins when fumbling to plug in something behind the dresser (although new plug designs tend to have molded graps and a rign around the front to make it harder at least). And insulated pins or a recessed housing would solve the theoretical “falling paperclip” problem.
When I revised the wiring in my house I had gotten tired of using a lot of cube taps so I mounted doubled outlets everywhere. Where there was no ceiling light I wired one ground down always hot, and one ground up on a dimmer.
I told my family not to touch the “upside down” outlets, but after a vacuum cleaner got plugged into them twice I pulled them out and replaced them with Lutron dimmable outlets. (which have the writing right side up with the ground up) Since they’re not listed for anything other than Lutron brand dimmers and I have Smarthome brand it’s still not technically legal, but now it’s safe.
There are recessed NEMA outlets. Usually they’re only used when the space is needed for the plugged-in appliance to be shoved up close to the wall.
Yes, even the doorbell wires at my mother’s house are in conduit. I have no idea how Ma Bell was able to put her foot down and keep phone wiring out of conduit.
IIRC, it was the rising popularity of computers that led Chicago to eventually abandon its own code and follow the NEC, and there were also some issues with the unions such as IBEW when companies balked at having to pay union electricians to put computer cables in conduit, and based expansion or relocation plans on this.
Oh, but having your low voltage in conduit is fantastic. Easy upgrades! Sometimes smart companies specified it for this reason, never mind the code.