Interesting video on electrical outlet orientation...

[Hawkmoon]

The guy actually makes a very good point. Compared to other designs around the world, American plugs are rather crap. My guess is that it's more a case of we've become so used to what is essentially a first generation plug design that we've become complacent with it. The US adopted 110 as standard wall power early on and we've never had to completely rebuild our power grid as much of Europe has had to do.... twice.

Our three-prong plugs and receptacles aren't first generation at all. My house was built in 1950. All the receptacles were originally two-prong -- hot and neutral no ground. The house is wired with BX (metal-armored) cable and metal wall boxes. The armor can act as a ground,, so I replaced all the receptacles with 3-prong when I moved in after my mother died. So ungrounded receptacles were the first generation, and the 3-prong grounded outlets are at least the second generation.

[Tuco]

Ground down is how I've always seen it, until we moved into our current home where all outlets in the living room, dining area, and the main bedroom were installed ground up.  Really triggered my OCD, so I set out to find answers!

The popular answer was previously mentioned - that ground up offers an obstacle against thin, falling, metallic objects that could trip a breaker, but I wasn't buying it. Another reason for an upside-down receptacle, according to the wild wild web, was sublime.

An upside-down receptacle serves to visually indicate a switched outlet!
Ah Ha!

I felt the peaceful, intoxicating wave of mental relief when a logical remedy is close at hand.  The solution was removing and rotating every non-switched receptacle.  Now the two remaining upside-down outlets are mated to a floor lamp and hanging lamp, each controlled by three-way switches, and most importantly Tuco's unexplained fits of rage are but a distant memory.

edit to add:
According to an appraiser friend of mine the term "Master Bedroom" has been determined offensive and therefore banished from the real estate lexicon. I was dumbfounded.

[K Frame]

Our three-prong plugs and receptacles aren't first generation at all. My house was built in 1950. All the receptacles were originally two-prong -- hot and neutral no ground. The house is wired with BX (metal-armored) cable and metal wall boxes. The armor can act as a ground,, so I replaced all the receptacles with 3-prong when I moved in after my mother died. So ungrounded receptacles were the first generation, and the 3-prong grounded outlets are at least the second generation.

Plugs. NOT receptacles. The plug is what you put into the receptacle.

Our plugs are largely a first generation design, very similar to what was rolled out between 1904 and 1912. Sure, a grounding prong was added later (ooh! New generation!) but the overall design is still solidly 1904 to 1912 and extremely similar to what Harvey Hubbell came up with... not to mention that there are tons of products sold every year in this country with two-prong plugs. Harvey Hubbell would be proud.

The two-prong/no ground system using the conduit or metallic armored cable as the ground is fine...

IF the cable is bonded to an actual grounding source (I've seen many cases where it's not) and if the electrical system isn't knob and tube with the wires embedded in the plaster of the walls, as was the case in many of the 2-prong outlets on my Mom's house, which was built in 1903.

The three prong plug, with the ground prong, was rolled out for home use starting in the 1920s (earlier for industrial use), but it wasn't until after World War II that it really started kicking off.

[K Frame]

Slight correction to the above. I chatted up the electrical inspector about this question at work today. He said it has become more or less customary for outlets to be installed with the ground terminal up in hospitals, but it's NOT required by the NEC (National Electrical Code) even in hospitals. My electrical inspector actually thinks it's better (overall) to install them ground down.

The guy in the video says exactly that -- not required by electrical code.

He said he thinks it's a better idea for the ground to be installed in the top position because it's a lot less likely that a bump, or even gravity, pulling the plug partially out of the wall and exposing the hot and neutral blades.

That partial accidental exposure is virtually impossible with European/Asian style round pin plugs or with US-style plugs where the blades are horizontal (generally denoting 20 amp) instead of vertical.

But, as he points out, the problem with that is that in many cases device plugs (90 degree models design to fit the cord flat against the wall) are designed so that they best fit with the ground pin down.

[K Frame]

That's exactly the kind of thing that triggered my interest in  the matter.  After you become sensitized to that BS it kind of jumps out at you whenever some clickbaiter does it and it gets freaking annoying.

I'm not condemning well done informative videos, but too often there's too much fiddly-fartin' before the crux is presented.

Too much fiddly-fartin...

So, pretty much like every one of your posts at APS.

Gotcha.

[Ron]

Actually, in my observation, it's quite the opposite with TV shows... they used to be written within a half-hour format.  Now they seem to take a blech little plot and blow it up into an hour with all kinds of folderol to inflate the running time.  One exception to this, I've noticed, is car chases.  They were always good then and they're always good now and aren't just time sinks... like a couple staring into each others' eyes for thirty seconds of screen time... with largo music.

I cite car chases in "Highway Patrol" (old) and the famous car chase in "The Pink Panther" (new-ish) as enjoyable time user-uppers.

see the book Amusing Ourselves to Death -Niel Postman. While the length of the show vs content may line up with what you say the actual length of the individual scenes has dramatically shortened over the years. The short scenes are what is rewiring the brain, not the total length of the program.

Here is a summary for short attention spans LOL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub2TDt9uPS4

[Ron]

More on topic, ground up seems so counter intuitive. Particularly regarding 120v equipment that has heavier cords but standard plugs in a commercial environment. I have seen outlets mounted that way in commercial kitchens. It's troublesome for equipment with 90 degree plugs on countertops.

On twist lock outlets I have noticed ground is up also.

Guess I'll make time to watch the video.

[zahc]

US isn't the worst. Two - prong receptacles are still very common in Japan even in new construction. When you think about how most appliances have only two pring plugs it sort of makes sense. And the requirement to run an entire, full-guage wire to every fixture, which is effectively never used except in a fault condition, is pretty extravagant if you think about the cost of copper. Particularly now that GFCIs are a thing, do more to solve electrocution and don't require the ground wire at all.

They also don't even use electrical boxes in Japan. The receptacles are just clipped to the wall with the wires dangling in the wall cavity.

My old laptop had the ground prong ripped off so I could use it there. My new laptop has a two prong usb c charger anyway.

The US plug isn't great but if I had to change anything about US electrical infrastructure it would be requiring fused plugs. Right now we have overcurrent protection for installed wiring, but then we allow appliances to have 22ga cords with no overcurrent protection, meaning a short in the appliance will melt to cord without ever tripping the breaker. The circuit can't "know" what device is plugged into it, of course, so the circuit shouldn't be responsible for protecting the devices, but it's still a problem. The stupid, expensive, and annoying solution seems to be AFCI breakers that can supposedly detect device faults, but the correct solution is to have a fuse or breaker in each plug, appropriate for the individual device. This is how UK plugs work, I think. We already see this in the US in particularly fire prone things like Christmas lights, and UL now requires a breaker in power strips. CPSC or UL should just start requiring fused plugs universally. It's cheap, backwards compatible, and makes sense, and provides protection even in old structures without AFCI.

You could also just insulate the prongs for the first 1/4 inch or so and have the receptacles break current at that point so there's never exposed, energized prongs. That seems pretty practical and I never understood why they didn't do that anyway.

[Hawkmoon]

US isn't the worst. Two - prong receptacles are still very common in Japan even in new construction. When you think about how most appliances have only two pring plugs it sort of makes sense. And the requirement to run an entire, full-guage wire to every fixture, which is effectively never used except in a fault condition, is pretty extravagant if you think about the cost of copper. Particularly now that GFCIs are a thing, do more to solve electrocution and don't require the ground wire at all.

GFCI protection requires the third conductor. Sensing current flowing in the grounding conductor is what trips the GFCI interruption. It's not possible to have GFCI with only two conductors.

[K Frame]

According to the discussion here, GFCIs do not require a third conductor...

https://forum.nachi.org/t/gfcis-on-2-wire-circuits/37538/2

This says the same thing, for the most part...

https://www.angi.com/articles/does-replacing-ungrounded-outlets-gfci-outlets-make-them-grounded-and-safe.htm

[K Frame]

I THINK fused plugs are a thing in Britain for two reasons...

They operate on 240 volt, so it's a safety issue, and many British home electrical installations are done with ring circuits.

[zxcvbob]

GFCI protection requires the third conductor. Sensing current flowing in the grounding conductor is what trips the GFCI interruption. It's not possible to have GFCI with only two conductors.

No they don't.  They detect an imbalance between the hot and neutral conductors.  They are approved for use on old 2-wire circuit and you're supposed to put a little sticker on the switch-plate that says "No Equipment Ground"

[zahc]

No they don't.  They detect an imbalance between the hot and neutral conductors.  They are approved for use on old 2-wire circuit and you're supposed to put a little sticker on the switch-plate that says "No Equipment Ground"

The sticker doesn't have to do with GFCI, it's just that you are required to put the sticker on any 3 prong receptacle that has a ground hole that's not actually connected to ground. If you could buy 2-prong GFCI receptacles, or if you put a GFCI with 2 prong receptacles downstream, you don't need the sticker on those. But it's moot in North America because any kind of new 2 prong receptacles have been obsolete for decades.

[K Frame]

"But it's moot in North America because any kind of new 2 prong receptacles have been obsolete for decades."

You can still buy 2-blacde receptacles. Easily. I've seen them at Home Despot. Leviton makes them, as do most of the other companies.

Or, are you talking about new construction as opposed to old work?

If new construction, I'd assume that the electrical code no longer allows ungrounded systems in new construction, but I don't know that for sure.

[RocketMan]

Zach, what appliances have you seen with 22ga wires aside from something like Christmas lights?

[230RN]

Of possible interest...  The power input side of my Kill-A-Watt power meter has the adaptor shown in the attachment with a ground clip (red clip attached to make it obvious).

You will note it is almost impossible to use a screw back there to connect to the outlet box ground.

Yet the "appliance side" into which you plug the appliance to be tested is a full three-prong outlet with the ground "hole" labeled as ground.



I was always intrigued by this odd arrangement.

Terry, 230RN

[WLJ]

Why not just plug an extension cord into the outlet and then plug the meter to that?
Did that on a few where it was inconvenient (location, other things plugged into the outlet, etc..) to plug the whole meter into the outlet

[230RN]

Why not just plug an extension cord into the outlet and then plug the meter to that?
Did that on a few where it was inconvenient (location, other things plugged into the outlet, etc..) to plug the whole meter into the outlet

Matter of fact, that's what I do.  In fact I keep a dedicated two-conductor cheapo extension cord in the "kit" containing the Kill A  Watt meter.  And yes, there is low-resistance conductivity between the ground outlet on the front side and the pictured lug in back. (See attachment in Reply # 39.)

I suppose if one had to, a dedicated technician could connect a jumper from that lug to the building ground if for some reason that was necessary in performing some measurement or another.  But apparently for most appliance measurement purposes, this is not necessary.

Just seemed odd they'd have an adapter in back where there was no way to screw it to the outlet box ground screw.  It  was kind of an "open circuit" in my mind.

Terry, 230RN

[Hawkmoon]

"But it's moot in North America because any kind of new 2 prong receptacles have been obsolete for decades."

You can still buy 2-blacde receptacles. Easily. I've seen them at Home Despot. Leviton makes them, as do most of the other companies.

Or, are you talking about new construction as opposed to old work?

If new construction, I'd assume that the electrical code no longer allows ungrounded systems in new construction, but I don't know that for sure.

I believe that is correct, but I'd have to ask our electrical inspector if there are any situations that still allow an ungrounded circuit.

[RoadKingLarry]

I've only ever had one problem with a "ground down" outlet.
This was pushing 25 years ago since both of the kids were still at home.
I had been brow beaten to allow the kids to have a cat in the house  :
Someone had set some change down on top of the TV set. Vile feline jumps up on the top of the TV and proceeds tp spray the wall behind the TV. 
I get up to toss the little POS outside and the cat manages to knock the change off the TV. A penny fell and landed on the plug that was just a tiny bit pulled away from the receptacle.  *Flash* *Pop* and the TV and room lights go out. Tripped the breaker but still killed the TV deader than a hammer.  TV was older and were were planning a replacement in the very near future anyway but, crap.
Cat was banished forevermore to being an outside cat.

[JTHunter]

I've only ever had one problem with a "ground down" outlet.
This was pushing 25 years ago since both of the kids were still at home.
I had been brow beaten to allow the kids to have a cat in the house  :
Someone had set some change down on top of the TV set. Vile feline jumps up on the top of the TV and proceeds tp spray the wall behind the TV. 
I get up to toss the little POS outside and the cat manages to knock the change off the TV. A penny fell and landed on the plug that was just a tiny bit pulled away from the receptacle.  *Flash* *Pop* and the TV and room lights go out. Tripped the breaker but still killed the TV deader than a hammer.  TV was older and were were planning a replacement in the very near future anyway but, crap.
Cat was banished forevermore to being an outside cat.

Appropriate.

[230RN]

My near miss on that which I mentioned was that I had a coathanger hanging on the wall above the outlet.  A wall wart below it was out just a bit, exposing its terminals just enough that if the coathanger fell, there was a slight chance it would hit the terminals.

Didn't figure the odds on it, but the "why take a chance?" philosophy took over and I took the pushpin out of the wall that held the coathanger.  I also noticed the wall wart did not seem to want to be firmly stuck in the socket, so I kept an eye on that afterwards.

I wasn't concerned about popping a breaker from a short contact, but about the resulting sparks.


Better to be hypersafe than hypersorry.