Upside down receptacles?

[Phil Thien]

It is actually faster to plug a cord into a receptacle with ground-up.

[Dave Richards]

Orange are isolated ground receptacles for sensitive equipment. I just installed some at church for our audio/video equipment due to a ground loop hum.

Indeed that's what orange is for. The ones in your photo are red so they are connected to the emergency power to be supplied by the hospital's generator(s) if the primary supply is interrupted. Those would be used for critical life support equipment such as ventilators and physiological monitoring.

Glad to hear your wife is doing well.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Dave Richards is a biomedical engineer IIRC. He could probably give us some insight.

[Rick Moyer]

Most outlets, here in the East anyhow, have one controlled by a switch and one always hot. How would that work?

I don't know the answer, Wade, but I bet California has a law for it.

[Jim Matthews]

Well, why are they so crooked ? I would not pay for that .

Ask the staff. As a former service tech to hospital gear
I can say there are two levels of destruction possible
for electrical gear.

What your children can do. (First)
What an RN with too many meds to administer can do. (Second)

In some care units, the space between the beds was designed
when sick Americans were taller than wide.

Beds have become wider, in the interim.

[Dan Hintz]

Ground up is code and is how every receptacle ever installed on any of my jobs has been done - it would very quickly hit the punch list if not. I believe it is NEC, and I do not believe there is any specific health care spec.

I'm aware of no NEC rule that specifies ground plug up.

[Dave Richards]

Some years ago i was in a clinic in St. Paul, MN doing electrical safety testing on clinical equipment. i came across a wall mounted device plugged into an outlet with the ground pin down. The wall covering above the receptacle was scorched and when I opened the cord cap, i found it had melted and burned the insulation back on the wires. the staff told me a child had found a paper clip and dropped it across the the pins. You could see the outline of the paper clip on the plug.

I'm aware of no NEC rule that specifies ground plug up.

NECA 130-2010 specifies the neutral pin is on top.

"Gounding-type receptacles mounted vertically should have the grounding conductor opening at the top. Receptacles mounted in the horizontal position should be mounted with the neutral conductor (long slot) up."
NECA 130-2010 5.5.3.e.

[roger wiegand]

I really upset the electrician working on our house addition when I insisted that he install the outlets ground side up. It really offended him it seemed, though he couldn't explain it. t think there's good reason to do it and no reason not to.

[Dave Richards]

True that, Roger. I installed them that way when we finished the basement and I've done it in my shop. I still need to turn the receptacles over in the upstairs of our house.

[Matt Day]

Dave, I was just going to post that I found found some articles online (Mike Holt for instance) that said NEC does not cover it and that either way is acceptable. Thanks for posting.

[Dave Richards]

Matt, I had to look it up to get the reference number and I came across Mike Holt's comment. The National Electric Code (NEC) and the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA) are two different things.

NECA130-2010 is part of the National Electrical Installation Standards (NEIS). It is ..."intended to comply with the edition of the National Electric code (NEC) in effect at the time of publication. Because they are quality standards, NEIS may in some instances go beyond the minimum requirements of the NEC."

[Ole Anderson]

Indeed that's what orange is for. The ones in your photo are red so they are connected to the emergency power to be supplied by the hospital's generator(s) if the primary supply is interrupted. Those would be used for critical life support equipment such as ventilators and physiological monitoring.

Glad to hear your wife is doing well.

Well orange is just red with a little yellow thrown and we all know there is a lot of yellow in a hospital room...My bad, yes they were red.

[Dave Richards]

Very good.

[Phil Thien]

I really upset the electrician working on our house addition when I insisted that he install the outlets ground side up. It really offended him it seemed, though he couldn't explain it. t think there's good reason to do it and no reason not to.

We live in a ground-plug-down world. And many devices, like the surge suppressors that fit into and cover an existing receptacle, and cords with right-angle plugs, are clearly designed for ground-plug-down installs.

So the result of ground-plug-up installs is right-angle cords travelling UP the wall instead of down. And, suppressors may have their reset buttons/indicator LED's facing down, and all the text upside down (which looks dumb).

And then there are heavy transformers that use the middle screw of a receptacle for support. All of the units I've found with a ground plug are designed for a conventional (ground-plug-down) install.

[Patrick McCarthy]

image.jpg

Most outlets, here in the East anyhow, have one controlled by a switch and one always hot. How would that work?

Wade, assuming a quad outlet, the one controlled by the switch is ground up and the hot side is ground side down. Thus the visual "clue" that part of it is switched.