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N8N N8N is offline
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Default 3 prong outlet, which way is up?

On Aug 28, 8:01*pm, mm wrote:
On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 13:59:39 -0700, "john" wrote:
Does the 2008 NEC specify which way to orient 3-prong outlets?


Should it be


ground on top
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...2/Electrical_o...


or


ground on bottom
http://images.jupiterimages.com/comm...4/23433400.jpg


Discussions here have centered around ground down, except when the
outlet is on a wall switch. * I *doubt most people would know that
code if they didn't own the home when it was under construction, but
those who pay attention could notice the difference and ask or figure
it out.

I have 3 receptacles on wall switches. I should check them..... *The
one I can get to is ground down, like the other outlets in the house.
That's what happens when the electrician is a durn furiner.

The tradition seems to be ground on bottom, but I heard it is safer to have
ground on top so falling coins are less likely to short out a loosely
plugged in plug.


I read that here too, and is my nature, I believe things when I first
hear them. * But in my life, I've only dropped coins in the middle of
the bedroom when I take off my pants, and off the front edge of
kitchen table. * I also don't have any loosely plugged in plugs, and
if I did, I can't imagine a coin getting in one. *


The reasoning I heard was that if you use metal cover plates and the
screw that secures the cover plate comes loose, the cover could
actually slide down and if you weren't paying attention could hit the
prongs of a plug as it's being removed. With the ground up this is
harmless; with the ground down you could energize the cover plate and/
or short the hot and neutral prongs of the plug if it fell just so.
An infinetesimally rare possibility, but a non-zero one.

nate