Should An Outlet Be Installed Ground Down Or Up

how's it going you guys it's scott with everyday home repairs and i'm just starting a new rehab project and i'm doing my to-do list and getting my plan of attack and one thing that i'll be doing on this property is updating some of the electrical including the receptacle you see behind me these are just worn out they're installed decades ago so you know that they can get really loose and really not hold a plug now that brought up a question that has been in the comments of many of the past videos that i've done where we're comparing different receptacles um in terms of residential grade or commercial grade and also just showing you how to install a simple outlet or receptacle and that is which way do you place the ground should it be facing up like the one behind me or actually in the same room i have receptacles installed with the ground facing down so just this house alone has confusion right there's there's multiple ways that people have installed them over the years so the question is what's the correct way is there a code that outlines this does nec outline this and also what other safety and design factors do you need to take into consideration to know what is the correct way to install these and stick around because one i want your feedback any comments that you guys have experienced that you have it's awesome to put that down in the comments i really do appreciate that and then i want your vote so i'll show you a quick way to vote and then also to see all the people that came before you what is their vote what percentage of people uh install ground up what percentage of people install ground down so let's jump into it first up let's discuss code so national electrical code and i don't want you guys to be distracted you're probably jealous of the sweet wood paneling i have behind me also this is going to be on the project for the rehab but with the code and this has been some confusion in the past nec does not at least within 2021 does not currently call out the correct orientation for a receptacle you might be on a job that has a spec or call out for which way they want it installed maybe it's at the hospital or another facility and they're saying ground up all receptacles will be ground up now that's not called out by nec that might be called out by the job so right now nac does not give guidance and there was a good feedback from one of the past videos where a commenter indicated one of the brands actually did put top actually put the word top where you would read top in the correct orientation if ground was facing up the problem with that is then if somebody installed it with ground facing down on a residence because this is not called out by nec they're having some issues getting it approved by the local inspector so it's causing confusion and then that brand eventually actually took that off so from a code perspective this is not called out at least within 2021. now moving on to safety and i would say that this is probably the strongest argument for ground facing up so if you look at a standard plug and you were to plug it into a ground facing up and specifically in this outlet it's very loose right the tension's very weak so a real scenario could be this plug backs out a little bit and exposes the prongs now if you were to introduce something like a screwdriver um another piece of metal a picture frame and it was to drop in this scenario it will hit the ground pin first opposed to hot and neutral which would create a short right so if you have ground facing down and you introduce something coming in it's going to touch the hot neutral connect those two and create a short trigger breaker create sparks and so on so this would probably be the best argument and the most common one i've seen in the comments is it's preferred to have that ground up because it could something could hit that bounce off and not cause any issues a couple additional notes on ground facing up now if you look at the brand websites leviton i think that's how you pronounce it i know people have corrected me in the past eaton or some of the other receptacle makers you'll notice in their marketing material the the shots right of the receptacles and the different models that they have the ground is facing up so there's obviously uh some lean towards ground facing up from the brand perspective so that should be noted and taken seriously because they are the manufacturer but in terms of some different plugs that you might have you might have a plug like this that takes a quick 90 right and that's trying to reduce the amount of clearance that you need between the receptacle and let's say an entertainment center or a desk sometimes you'll see these on surge protectors or other types of extension cords now if you go ground facing up you're obviously not getting the advantage of that quick 90 because the cord is gonna have to double back down need a little bit more clearance to get to the ground so that is one challenge not a huge challenge but one challenge i see and then the from that safety perspective two-prong two-prong are the most common that aren't going to hold because they don't have that ground pin to give another additional point of tension so two programming more likely to pull out now in that case the argument of something falling on the the prongs it doesn't matter if you're ground up or ground down that is still going to connect your hot in neutral so it kind of takes away from that safety perspective now i want your feedback and also the best way for you to learn isn't necessarily to listen to me right i'm a diy-er just kind of learning through this stuff not a licensed electrician but you can see the feedback of hundreds or thousands of people and see what the percentage is how many people do ground facing down how many people do ground facing up so if you prefer ground facing down the majority of time you install ground facing down hit the like button okay turn that like button blue alternatively if you prefer ground facing up go ahead and hit the dislike button the thumbs down turn that one blue then as you guys watch this video one don't forget to vote and two you can look at the percentage or look at the number of ups versus down it's inverse of what you might think but that's how we'll vote on this one and hopefully it doesn't completely blow up my like to dislike percentage go ahead and vote give me any other feedback that you have now from my standpoint i do ground facing down that's something i'm used to maybe it just comes from my area that's the highest percentage of receptacles or ground facing down and i just i don't see the huge safety benefit like i said i think two prong is where your vegas issue is and that's gonna be independent of ground facing up or down i do use ground facing up in specific instances where i have a switched receptacle where a light switch is controlling the power to a receptacle at least on the top or bottom so in that case i do put ground facing up and that's just to easily denote which receptacles are switched opposed to always power on hopefully that cleared up in your mind there is no definitive way but there are some pros and cons and different things to consider and before taking off don't forget to subscribe to the channel we have weekly videos like this to help you out around the house with your repairs and improvements and we'll catch you on the next one take care

Channel: Everyday Home Repairs

Views: 1,376,905

Keywords: outlet installation, receptacle installation, receptacle orientation, why are outlets, why are outlets upside down

Id: kYXvcog9MxY

Length: 7min 18sec (438 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 11 2021