On Wednesday, September 28, 2016 at 11:21:41 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Wed, 28 Sep 2016 21:18:13 -0400, "TomR" wrote:

A friend of mine asked me today why the electrical outlets in my house were
"upside down". They are positioned with the ground pin hole at the top and
the two slots of the outlet on the bottom. I agree that, to me, they "look"
like they are upside down, and I think they would "look" better with the
ground pin hole on the bottom. But, my belief is that the National
Electrical Code (NEC) is silent on this question and that there is no right
or wrong orientation for electrical outlets.

My friend said that he has had code enforcement officials tell him that
electrical outlets with the ground pin hole on top were "upside down" and
that they needed to be reversed to be with the ground pin on the bottom to
pass the electrical inspection.

Is there anything in the NEC that says that one way is "upside down" and the
other way is the "correct" orientation?

Short answer, No. There is no rule about how they are mounted and
there is even a school of thought that ground up is better. Something
falling between the plug and the wall would hit the ground.

Typically when a receptacle is different than the rest, it is
switched.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wanted the ground pin up on the construction sites where I worked. There was a concern about an extension cord plug being partially pulled out of the wall and someone dropping a suspended ceiling tie wire and it hitting the wall, sliding down and landing on the exposed prongs. I've seen it happen on other job sites where the ground pin was down and the plug was pulled out a bit. There were some sparks until the breaker kicked and a good plug was ruined. Me and my fellow electricians repaired a lot of extension cords for the other trades like carpenters who sawed their cords in half. If an electrical accident can happen, it often does on a construction site. Most are minor like those with damaged extension cords but tragically there are those rare occasions when some idiot gets in contact with a live 4160 line. o_O

Here in Birmingham, the electrical inspectors want the ground pin up but in the next city over, the inspectors don't care about the sexual orientation of an electrical outlet. If you look at right angle dryer cords, the ground pin is at what I think of as the top end of the plug. Coat hangers can be good electrical conductors. ^_^

https://www.amazon.com/Certified-App.../dp/B00009W3PA

https://www.amazon.com/Certified-App.../dp/B0014KO11O

[8~{} Uncle Grounded Monster