Politely asked to keep quiet.

Bob

[This message has been edited by iwire (edited 04-10-2006).]

To plug in a window A/C cord?

I agree with iwire, it's a switched outlet.

I personally like the idea of flipping switched receptacles; in theory it seems like it would be pretty easy for people to remember that the upside down receptacles are controlled by switches. In practice, the majority of what I hear is: "Whoever put that outlet in doesn't know what they're doing! It's upside down and it doesn't even work!"

-John

Probably has to do with an angle plug appliance cord that was/will be plugged into it. I personally flipped the receptacle behind my fridge so the cord comes down from the receptacle rather than straight up. I've noticed that most angle plug cords point down when the receptacle is mounted ground down, yet fridges for the most part point up when the receptacles are ground down. (The way that they are supposed to be.)

Runs for cover and hides.

[This message has been edited by IanR (edited 04-10-2006).]

Bob was quite right...I just asked him to let some of the newer guys take a shot at this first! Thanks, Bob!

I posted it because the idea of flipping the switched receptacle is one of those "trade practices" that almost everyone learns as an apprentice, but is not mentioned in any code book,or DIY manual I've ever seen.

Besides the "it don't work" cmplaint Big John mentioned, I have seen instances where the switched half was fed from a different circuit than the other half- and some maintenance guy, not "in on the secret" just replaced the "non working" receptacle ....with spectacular results when the switch was later flipped!

This, in turn, brins us to point #2: it never hurts to treat every wire as if it were hot- even if you're pretty sure it's dead. There just might be a switch somewhere....

Keeping with the flipped receptacles topic, how many of you put the neutral on the top when mounting a receptacle sideways?

In both states Ive worked in (NJ and FL) I have never seen switched receptacles placed ground up.

[This message has been edited by LoneGunman (edited 04-10-2006).]

>>how many of you put the neutral on the top when mounting a receptacle sideways?<<

I do.. it't the way I was taught way back when and I agreed with the rationale behind it and still do, and its just shop practice where I work anyway..

I usually flip the recp when its a ac. Im still a little new to residential work and when asked why I flipped it i said because the cord on the ac is upside down. He said ok. Just like the other gentleman said he flips them when its a switched outlet. Im usually in the basement stapleing thats why i usually dont see the recps when he flips them.

I've never heard of flipping the receptacle upside down to indicate a switched receptacle. In theory it seems like a good idea, though. See, you really do learn something everyday!

trollog -
"how many of you put the neutral on the top when mounting a receptacle sideways?<<

I do.. it't the way I was taught way back when and I agreed with the rationale behind it and still do, and its just shop practice where I work anyway.."

I do that way also, as it was the way I was taught. I'm sure I asked "why", but I don't remember the "why" at the moment. What is the rational behind it?

The rationale behind having the ground pin (or neutral blade) on the top is that anything that falls and hit a pertially engaged plug would hit somthing that was grounded and not cause a spark/fire. Unfortunately, I've never seen anything fall onto the metal parts of a plug and remain perfectly balanced there until someone notices it...so THERE!!

The rationale behind having the ground pin on the bottom is that on a partially disengaged plug, the ground pin would be the very last thing to disconnect, thus the load would always be grounded as long as there was even a tenuous power connection. However, I've never seen a plug that was that far out unless it fell the rest of the way out shortly thereafter...so THERE!!

There have been several attempts at requiring a specific orientation in the NEC and they have always been voted down. Before I end up inadvertently start a flame war; I was in an office that was wired by an EC with a ironclad "ground pin on top" rule. Every vending machine and all of the copiers/printers that had angled plugs had this goofy 'rooster-tail' where the plug shot the cord straight up the wall, only to turn around to feed the load. Quite a few of these ended up with the cord duct taped to the wall to keep it from pulling the plug out by its own weight.

I don't care which way the receptacle is mounted...but I can't understand why some folks take an almost militant position that any orientation is absolutely required for every single instance.

...and yes, the quads in my shop are installed with the ground up on one duplex and the ground down on the other to accomodate the angled plugs and just to make life easier overall.

The one switched socket in my flat is brown, to distinguish it from the white ones all over the place.

They're all mounted sideways, however.

I have flipped receptacles to accomodate right angle plugs.

Sometimes I wish they made it so that all right angle 3-pin plugs can rotate 360 degrees. There are some pigtails (1-foot lengths of extension cord) that can do that.

Would certainly solve THAT proble.

Well said.

If it's a horizontal receptacle outdoors, I prefer placing the hot on top, so it's less likely to be contacted by water within the box.

As for the szwitched receptacle, I prefer selling the customer on the idea of split-wiring the entire room, especially in bedrooms and living rooms, where table and floor lamps are the norm.

I install all the receptacles in my home with the ground up. It is an easy way for me to keep track of where I have addressed the often crappy installation work by the previous owner.

I find it funny how easily we all fall into the trap of calling something "upside down" even when we know there is no definition of right side up. I am glad that the code making panels have rejected all attempts at standardizing receptacle orientation in order for us to do what is best for each particular receptacle installation.

About a year ago I was in Chicago to attend an NFPA 70E seminar for electrical safety in the workplace. The presenter first pointed out that the extension cord that the hotel gave him for his projector so he could teach about electrical safety was damaged, with parts of the outer jacket missing. Ironic, huh? Not too long into his talk he also pointed out that all the receptacles in the room were mounted sideways (not sure if hot or neutral was up). Before the seminar he had done some checking. The ground up/ground down issue had been vigourously discussed by the powers that be in Chicago, the result being a local code, at least for hotels, that recepts must be sideways!

I bought an older house two years ago that had all receptacles on the ground floor mounted 'wrong', ground up. The previous owner was not a handyman so I chalked it up to his 'foolishness'. (This was before I learned that there are legitimate(?) reasons for doing it both ways.) The pre-sale electrical inspection revealed that the ground location really didn't matter, because the circuits feeding them were only two conductor, and the ground pin was floating in mid-air. The kicker was, presumably in order to bring this older house up to current safety codes, he had installed GFCI receptacles in the bathrooms. These didn't have grounding conductors attached either, so were useless as a protection device. They only worked when you pressed the test button.

My mom used to be a cleaning woman. She walked into her scheduled clean one morning to a house full of smoke. No body else home, she grabbed the dog and called 911. Turns out the owner started the dryer on her way out. The metal cover plate finally worked its way loose on the 220 dryer outlet, dropped down for a phase-phase short across the plug blades. Don't know if it was FPE breaker (come to think of, that would be useful information) but it didn't trip. Plug orientation may have helped this almost disaster.

ESC, Replacing a two prong receptacle on a two wire circuit with a GFCI device is an acceptable method and the device will trip.

Heres part of an articel from ECMweb.

Let’s talk about the last two options. A GFCI-protected grounding-type receptacle without an equipment-grounding conductor is safer than a grounding-type receptacle with an equipment-grounding conductor, but without GFCI protection. This is because the GFCI protection device will clear a ground-fault when the fault current is 5mA (+ or - 1mA), which is less than the current level necessary to cause serious electric shock or electrocution.

ESC, GFCI devices do not, I repeat: do not require an EGC to operate. I take your comment to mean that a plug-in GFCI tester will not trip the GFCI receptacle. That is true.

A GFCI operates by detecting a difference in current between the hot and the neutral, which indicates that much current is getting back to the neutral by some other pathway.

A GFCI's internal test button allows 5 ma. to flow between the circuit's hot (after the current sensor) and the neutral (ahead of the current sensor). (120v / 0.005a = 24K Ohms)

The reason a GFCI's test button works, and a plug-in tester's test button does not, is that the receptacle has access to the neutral ahead of the differential-current sensor, and the plug-in tester does not.

Therefore, the only way the plug-in tester can place a low-current pathway between hot and earth is through the grounding pin. If it used the neutral, the GFCI wouldn't detect any difference.

We sometimes flip the grounds up for the office workers who are always dropping paper clips ontop of a loaded recept , and sometimes flip them at the fast food joints that use those foil burger wrappers.

Larry and Lone,
I stand corrected. Thanks for setting me straight.

Anyone ever put a single pole switch in the No and FFO Position?

I used to work on airplanes and I swear to god we would get pilots (this is IFF Gear) that would send us gripes that said, "Will not function in the OFF position.