ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area ground up or downon receptacles

Ground up or down?





Ian A..

It depends where they are located. In the basement, they go ground up. First floor and above, ground down. No idea which way they should be on a space station...

Roger

Roger: What is that thing? It looks like a receptacle with grounds and nothing else .

Mike (mamills)

Grounds up or down? Are you kidding?

Oh, you're making the little lock anxious

Mike, it's a safety receptacle, there's no chance of getting shocked when using it.

Roger

Ahhhhh... It's good to see some things never change....

Grounded (Neutral) up.... Ground left....

[This message has been edited by e57 (edited 02-21-2007).]

However, on one of the gazzilion treads on this very topic - there was mention that the lettering on the yoke was right-side up when the ground was up... Which is not exactly true, as most are right-side up when installed ground down. But recently I found some with the printing that way, and they were installed ground - writing up-side down. They had to be the most poorly made Spec-grade recepticals I have ever seen dispite which way the writing was. Every terminal screw was poorly threaded so nearly all connections were loose due to lack of being able to torque them right.

Before everyone starts trying to get all those worms back into the can , the original question did refer to "the rest of the world," which puts a slightly different spin on the topic.

In the U.K., the accepted convention is ground-up, like this:



Very occasionally I'll come across an outlet mounted upside down or even on its side, but it's usually obvious why it's been done, e.g. mounting on a narrow panel or close to a floor. Anything other than the standard ground-up looks distinctly odd, and most people would only accept odd orientations in hidden locations, in a garage or shed, etc.

There are two other contributory factors to ground-up here. First, all of our 13-amp plugs are right-angle types, so anything other than ground-up results in cords at awkward angles:



Second, most outlets used in domestic wiring are the switched type, so mounting the other way up would result in the switches operating upside down as well.

Our older round-pin grounding receptacles (with the same basic triangular arrangement of pins) were also ground-up.

I was always taught that when the outlet is placed sideways neutral is always to face up! as far as normal install ground down for res. ground up for comm.