ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area outlets

GA76Apprentice, sideways is horizontal which is what wa2ise mentioned. In those cases, you are marginally safer to put the neutral prong on the topside and the hot prong towards the floor. The flooding issue seems ridiculous with less than an inch of elevation difference.

In a dwelling unit, ground up or ground down is not going to make a bit of difference 99.9% of the time. (That is an official guesstimate)

1)Very few plugs that will be plugged in at a dwelling unit will have a ground prong, "to guard" the hot from thin falling metal objects.

2)Most dwelling units utilize non-metallic plates, so if a plate does come unscrewed and if it falls onto the prongs no problem.

Seems like we could worry about something really important.

Like "Should the lights go out when all 3 and 4 way switches are in the down position?"

One note on this subject... There is a city I did a residential rewire a while back in & the inspector requested the switched receptacle in each bedroom be turned :ground up:.. I thought this was simply a trade practice, but I did it anyways... flip 3 outlets, get final on the spot... Sounded like a deal to me! But it was the only time I was requested to do so... Usually I'll ask whoever I'm doing the installation for what their preference is..

-Randy

Personal preference

In our steel fab shop, grounds go up. With that much metel in the air, any little bit helps.

switched outlets, ground up, switched outlet on the bottom.

just me.

tw

I was told it was a matter of "first to make last to brake".

If you'll visit the address below, you'll go to the photo section of ECN. Halfway down the page is the device that solves the ground up/down dilemma.
https://www.electrical-contractor.net/ubb/Forum5/HTML/000527.html

With a straight face, ask for one at your local store.

this covers all the bases.

Roger

Something that I never understood about the Hubbel 4-way receptacles: it is arranged so that the _hots_ are on the outside from all sides. It would seem trivial to put the _neutral_ slots on the outside.

The Leviton 4-way receptacle actually puts the grounds 'up' on the top and 'down' on the bottom, and looks something like two of iwire's retouched decora duplex receptacles side by side.

-Jon