You will find a lot of erroneous information on the Internet, including the forums and message boards. If you think that you have found truth by following the majority, you too are wrong. As late as five years ago, about 90% of the retailers on the web were displaying their curved lever doorsets with the tails pointing up. After many of us pointed out the error, the retailers had their digital clerks and photographers correct the mistake.
Today, there is similar confusion on the topic of how a wall receptacle should be installed. The retailers are coming around to the fact that the ground prong should be installed below the neutral and hot terminals. Ironically, the real source of this new confusion seems to be the forums, message boards, and their respective members and gatekeepers.
Like in your story above, Electricians have a BAD habit of training their apprentices the wrong methods, and over time, it is all they know,… so like with the internet… “It MUST be fact” and “I’ve been doin’ it this way for 50 years”!!
You naysayers must be among those who have been installing the receptacles upside-down for the past three decades. So you can never admit you’re wrong now.
I have worked with stuff for 50yrs too, and I try to provide documented fact (which may not be correct or fact), but it’s not MDDITW, or I can’t show you why, buy I have done it for half a century, so I must be right.
I may have been doing this wrong for 50 yrs, but at least I’m willing to listen to you as to why. But I’m looking for more than a WAG. A SWAG would even be better…
I have heard, without factual documentation, that the ground on top protects things from gravity dropping stuff behind the plug. Sounds rational to me.
I have also “experienced” builders turn the plug upside down (with reference to the rest of the house) that are switched outlets. Again, sounds fine to me…
The biggest fact here is that you believe everything you read as fact other than what has been established by the NEC that controls the people installing them.
Three opinions make it a requirement/Code/Safety concern?
Who the hell is:
KHTOOMEY
Richard Anton
Richard Cowburn
Next time I plug in an #8 ga cable from the ceiling outlet of my garage, I’ll keep that loose plug scenario in mind. Thanks.
I suspect your post here was a form of marketing, showing how much better you are at nitpicking than the rest of the crew out there. Door lock-sets and plug orientation? Wow, I sure wish I had someone tell me this stuff when I purchased my houses. I’m 68yrs old, and I managed to survive!?
Your GFCI’s Trip and Reset buttons are oriented properly, indicating that the device is properly installed. If you examine it more closely, you will find that the ground screw is on the bottom left corner as it is with other devices which have the ground slot below the hot and neutral slots.
