I worked at a studio where the plugs were on the skirting, flush with the ground.
So you could actually get a plug into the socket (non brit-dopers: our plugs have the cable sticking out of the bottom, towards the floor) without bending the cables too much, they were installed upside-down with the ground terminal a the bottom.
Not really that much help, nor that interesting an anecdote, but related nonetheless.
Well, that will make a cite pretty hard to accomplish one way or the other. Thank you for the information.
I talked to a licensed NJ electrician who stated what I related above. He related more information than I had. danceswithcats do you own a copy of the code? If you do, could you please check the pertinent chapter?
Jim
Just another bit of NJ trivia-- Our full bathroom renovation was completed about 2 years ago. The 2 outlets are GCFIs with the ground down. Our kitchen renovation was completed in 1999. All outlets are ground down, and the ones near the sink and stove are GCFIs. Our electrician is excellent and our town inspectors are notoriously picky.
There seems to be some sort of discrepancy between what What Exit’s plant electrician is telling him and what is actually happening out there. If we can’t come up with an answer here, I could call my electrician and ask him about it.
Strangely, all outlets in the bedrooms are GCFI. They were there when we got here. Makes me wonder what previous owners were doing in there! :eek:
As I am thinking I must be nuts, that might be good. I had heard this for years and the Plant Electrician had backed it up without my prompting and supplied the neutral up for sideways installs and yet no one else seems to have heard of it.
My WAG. Maybe a waterbed sometime in the past? If it is an older house, maybe a previous owner had ungrounded plugs and when they bought their waterbed, they upgraded all the outlets in the bedroom and just went with GCFI.
Here is a direct quote from the Director of Standards and Safety at NECA.
I’ll give him a call, then.
Well, that’s much more benign than any of the scenarios I imagined. Thanks for ruining my fun. 
But you’re probably right. The house was built in 1924 so all the outlets have been upgraded at some point. The bedrooms are small, so no outlet would really be safe from a waterbed explosion.
Our country is about as big as the continent you reside next to. Progress is complicated. With the amount of electrical appliances we use nowadays, and the amount of construction going on, making changes in the outlets we use would IMO be disastrous.
Just an aside, but if you wanted the ultimate in safety (NO chance of electrocution0; could you convert your house to 12 vold DC? You would need beefier wiring, but you can get appliances that run on 12VDC-although an electric stove would be a challenge. Can this be done?
You can still injure yourself, as anyone who has put a wrench in the wrong place while working on a battery system will tell you. Low voltage does not mean low energy.
The telephone company uses -48V DC in their central offices. Future cars will be designed to use a 42V electrical system.
Forget about wiring, at those voltages you will be dealing with bus bars. Do you want your house to look like an industrial plant?
I do. I have. And it ain’t. As others have said previously, the NEC doesn’t specify outlet orientation one way or the other. That does not preclude a state code from doing so, however. The NEC does not carry the force of law, it is merely a model for states to follow when legislating their codes. Most states pretty much follow the NEC verbatim, with very minor modifications.
Beefier is an understatement. In order to get the same power at your average outlet you would need a huge wire. Take a typical 20A circuit. At 120V, that’s 2400 watts. Those same watts via 12V is 200A.
According to this chart a 12ga wire supports 23A when enclosed, which is why we use 12ga wire for 20A circuits. You would now need a wire that is rated for 200A, that’s 000ga. That’s a thick, thick wire, over a centimeter in diameter, you’ll need 3 of those bundled together to make a circuit, and run hundreds of feet of that through your house.
My understanding is that higher voltages, like they use in Europe, are actually safer, because there’s less of a risk of fire. The lower current needed to provide the same power results in less heat generated in the wire so you can use smaller wire, or just have a bigger margin of safety with the same gauge wire.
I do not know what to tell you, unless it is an urban legend specifically among some central Jersey electricians? I went to a reputable source; I would guess there are some local codes.
Shortly after I got home from the Navy, I did a favor for one of my Dad’s friends. He asked me to flip six outlets he had, had put in as he was selling his house. He was told it was not up to code. Again, this was specifically in Tinton Falls in 1989. I checked with the only Professional I could quickly check with and he confirmed there was a code that the ground or the neutral should be facing up. I have no further resources and I am mystified by the apparent discrepancy.
Jim
It is possible that it is, indeed, a code requirement in NJ. However, the anecdotal evidence presented so far in this thread suggests that it is not, or that it is extremely loosely enforced.
I should also say in your defense, in regard to the anecdotes presented earlier, that I’ve seen some gawdawful wiring get a pass upon inspection; there are just as many incompetent inspectors as there are electricians. I can see something as minor as outlet orientation being overlooked.
I am leaning towards the loosely enforced.
However, if it specific to a township level. I can only speak to 3 towns and that does not include my current town. A conversation never arose when the electrical inspector was approving both my water heater and later my solar panel system. I have at least one outlet setup in my shop that I wired that probably is a violation.
I ran an outlet down a board I nail to the rafters in the basement to put it close to my large saws and drill press.
I am very interested in what Green Bean’s contact says.
Jim
I have a pdf version of the 2002 NEC. (All 718 pages.)
Article 406 of the NEC covers all the details on how to properly install a receptacle. I read Article 406 in its entirety. It says nothing about the orientation/configuration of the receptacle.
I have the 2005 version. Same deal with respect to Article 406 here, too.
Neutral facing up ? That would require receptacles to be installed sideways, wouldn’t it ? I’ve never seen that.
What he means is that in the event that the receptacle is to be installed horizontally, the neutral must face up. This isn’t common, but I’ve seen it on occasion; sometimes you’ll have a situation where an outlet needs to be situated in a location where there isn’t enough room for the traditional vertical installation, or such an orientation would be awkward.
Is it really all that critical? In the event an electrical inspector is touring the home for some reason and checking all of your electrical outlets, the worst that can happen is that you have to flip them. [ul]
[li]Unscrew face plate.[/li][li]Unscrew top and bottom screws.[/li][li]Flip outlet.[/li][li]Screw it in.[/li][li]Replace face plate.[/li][/ul]
Problem solved.