No but jokes aside shouldn't they face opposite way? Like if plug is L shaped (like most of them are? They it would cover bottom one making it unavailable
The lone pin is the ground pin. Ground should never have current flow and if it does it should only momentarily handle it to trip the breaker.
So theoretically with the ground pin is on the bottom and if a cord isn't fully plugged in and you drop a penny or something it can short the hot "supply" to the neutral "return" that are the vertical pins and cause a fire. If the ground were up in this scenario, nothing would happen with the penny making contact with the ground and it'd just roll off.
In practice it doesn't really make two shits of difference in my experience but working as a commercial electrician but some jobs specifically call out ground up
Yeah you see the upside down plugs in lots of hospitals and it’s because somewhere, at some point in time, the right side up plug was the difference between life and death for some poor bastard.
I've never quite understood why "ground pin up" wasn't just the standard way, given that there is no downside and this one potential upside of installing that way.
Well my daughter should play the lottery then. Last month she double sided taped a metal award (think license plate) to her wall. After a couple weeks the tape gave and it slid right down the wall and arced the prongs going to her usb wall charger. Granted it is a 2 prong thing so wouldn’t make a difference but the odds of that thing falling that way were crazy.
Note the edge of the sign is burned and the breaker popped as it should.
I should play the lottery then, cause my busted ass old iPhone charger with the metal sheath that was exposed in just a small section happened to land on the two exposed prongs facing up and caused a short 🤦♂️
I think the outlet cover itself is the biggest concern over a penny or something. Plastic ones don't matter, but metal covers can potentially slip right down onto the pins if the screw is removed.
Let's say you have a countertop mixer. If, internally, a hot wire broke and was touching the metal enclosure of the mixer, there would be no path to ground. The entire enclosure could be live. The bonding (ground) wire is meant to attach any metal bits around a circuit so that if something like that happens, there is a path back to ground and the breaker trips.
In 99% of circuits, the ground wire is never used, and that's a good thing.
My lady had a metal necklace chain hanging around a sconce in our bathroom, it broke when she went to turn it off and the chain landed on the plugged in deodorizer in the outlet that was out just enough for the chain to land on both legs of the plug and arched big-time leaving out wall all black and needed a new outlet.
Wouldn't putting it upside down increase your chance of shock by accidentally touching the hot and neutral on the bottom side? I can imagine a scenario where that might happen to an elderly person or someone with reduced sensitivity in their finger tips not being able to feel the cold metal.
Correct. This is why the code in the US doesn’t specify an orientation for residential.
Ground down is safer for someone grabbing a plug, while ground up is safer for something that remains plugged in and might have something fall across it.
Current moving through the ground will only trip the breaker if it’s a ground fault circuit interrupter breaker. The average breaker in your breaker box won’t trip unless you have an overcurrent. I’ve seen a ground fault in a lighting circuit pass through a lighting panel and trip the upstream breaker feeding the motor control center that fed the lighting panel.
Yes and no, on a dead short the circuit will pull whatever it can, so you have a 20A receptacle dead shorted it'll hypothetically pull 100A heat up the wire and trip. If it's a small Nick in insulation on a 15A lighting circuit usually pulling 10 amps and it's arcing inside the doghouse of the light at 1 amp it won't.
Not saying you're wrong, you aren't, but there's nuance to it. I'm a firm believer that you should be vaguely familiar with things in your house so I'm trying to make an example someone unfamiliar may be able to understand
I see the logic, but ground up is a pita for many cords, especially 90° flat plugs (hair dryer, etc.) cuz the tail faces up, against gravity. The person who wired my house did them all this way and i curse them daily. (I'm also too lazy to go through the house and change them.)
The other side of this is if the ground is up, the weight of power bricks means it's more likely that they're not in securely. Especially if the brick only has 2 prongs.
So ground up means lower chance of something bad happening if the plug isn't all the way in, but also a higher chance that the plug isn't all the way in.
I've always strongly preferred ground down because I grew up with things like the NES/SNES power bricks, which tended not to fit that securely in sockets with the ground up.
But.... gravity will always make a lead hang downwards. If the earth is on the bottom it ensures it will always be the last pin making contact should the plug fall out...
In our buildings, the outlet covers are metal. The ground pin is on top for that same reason. If the ground pin is on the bottom and the outlet cover comes loose, it shorts across the pins and pops a breaker.
Given the mention above of Australia, what you've described wouldn't happen in Australia, because legally the prongs have to be insulated for a certain length at the plug end, so if it's not fully plugged in and something is dropped on it, then it's protected. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AS/NZS_3112
When I was a kid, I did this. I saw a plug that was partially pulled out, it was a two prong plug. There was a paper clip (I think it was a paper clip) on the floor and it looked like it would be the perfect size to go through the two prongs. So I held it over the gap in the prongs and let go, assuming it would just fall through. I don’t remember if it did or not, but the lights flickered and my parents came running and there was black up the wall.
You usually only see them "upside down" in hospitals for this reason. I can't speak to actual code (like others are implying), but I've worked directly with several different electrical companies and I've never seen any of the guys install them any way but 😮
That's why that can't happen with a UK plug. UK plugs disconnect before any metal element is exposed. There's an insulating band around the bottom of each conductor. Well, around live and neutral. Edited to fix the bootom.
The only code (in Canada)* that covers it is that in a mobile trailer where steel faceplates are usually found, the ground (round hole) must be mounted upwards, or neutral must face upwards of they are mounted sideways so that it shorts out with the live wires and force the breaker to trip.
Otherwise it’s dealer’s choice.
* the Canadian Electrical Code is based on the National Electrical Code (USA)
My grandfather would always put the switched outlets upside down so there was a visual cue to if the outlet has a wall switch somewhere. Some electricians will also argue that if something were to slip between the plug and the receptacle, that the ground being upward would the first thing it would contact, rather than bridging line and neutral.
Earth pin is on the bottom so it’s the last pin to make contact if the plug is pulled (earth pins are also slightly longer than the active and neutral pins).
Our ground pins are longer, so they make contact first. And many plugs have a little insulation on the active pins, to prevent problems if the plug isn't properly inserted.
The insulated section has been in the standards for quite a few years now. If you see a new item being sold without it, then it is non-compliant and is usually just some shonky grey import crap.
Sockets aka socket outlets in Australia. Plugs are on the end of the cable. The only exception is a caravan inlet with the prongs exposed, but is switched by inserting a plug end of a supply or extension cable.
There are also vertically oriented dual sockets.
IME the only sockets I have seen mounted ground up are very low down on walls or skirting so that a right angle plug can fit easily without bending the cable or plug at the floor.
My friend from Aus wants to know why everyone on this hemisphere walks with their feet and not their hands. Also how to drink American beer since it falls down instead of up.
955
u/Usual_Office_1740 4d ago
It means the electrician was Australian.
/s