I've seen a few Receptacles which were barbecued kind of to the extent of the one in Bill's attached image. Not quite as fried, but close to it.
The ones I had replaced [in houses - I'll leave out the vast amount of damaged outlets in Commercial installs] were mostly where the branch circuits were connected "In Series" - where the makeup was done on the Receptacle's terminals, rather than using Wirenuts and Pigtails.
Lots of older houses [circa 1955 - 1960] with the NM cable W/O ground had these types of terminations.
Other R&R Receptacles were- of course - Bathroom Receptacles [gee, I wonder why??
]
Along side of each one was the 1800 Watt blow dryer, which also had a fried cord cap / plug.
Some had replacement caps.
A few outlets were torched from portable electric floor heaters. They would usualy have signs of guilt too - their plugs were all charcoal.
I'm thinking seriously about not only having dedicated circuits per bathroom receptacles [1 circuit per bathroom], but using heavy duty 20 amp Hospital grade GFCI receptacles, or something in Spec grade which holds really solid.
Along with that, promote leaving the device plugged in at all times [to reduce internal contact / wiper wear].
This would be for my own house, or suggestions towards a person building a house, who mistakenly asks me for advice
[P.S. this is the "edit" portion - forgot to include that personal note part the first time. my mind is wandering off againnnnnnnnnn..........]
This might not work so well for those whom have recepts real close to sinks and such. Ours are far enough away that a plugged in appliance would not be able to fall into the sink.
Scott SET
[This message has been edited by Scott35 (edited 04-24-2001).]