Are your outlets installed upside down? (You may be surprised)

⚡Backyard Maine Sticker give away!!⚡ Please comment on which orientation you install receptacles (or) which way they are installed at your home. Three comment winners will be picked at random on January 1st, 2023. I will reach out to the winners for their mailing address so I can send the stickers to you. Thanks for taking part!

As an old electrical dude I have heard the logic of the "ground up" orientation and I do understand it. However; I have never seen a situation where the "ground down" orientation has been a problem, either in residential or industrial applications; and like you say, "ground up" just looks odd. ! Good discussion !

I bought a new house recently and all the receptacles that were linked to a wall switch were upside-down (i.e. had the ground up). The builder told me that's so I can quickly see which switch was activated by the switch on the wall. For more clarification, it was only the top outlet that was controlled, the bottom one was always on. Since you'd normally only be plugging one lamp into that area, it wouldn't make sense to have them both switch activated. Now that I've been here for some time, I like this approach.

I wholeheartedly agree with you on ground down. The esthetics are more presentable on a ground down. Many of my cord applications prove that ground down will accommodate other cords more easily.

As a retired union electrician who for most of my career worked in hospitals, they almost always requested ground up installs. So that's what I tend to lean towards. 🙃

I think they should make them so the grounds are opposite in each plug, facing inward toward the screw hole. This would allow two transformers to be plugged into each outlet for electronic devices.

For most of my life in the 1900's, I've seen the outlets installed ground down. That's my preference. Also, most of the flat 90 degree plugs are designed so that the cord faces down, when plugged into a ground down outlet. This seems less stressful on a cord, than having the cord facing upward, unless the appliance happens to be above the outlet.

Growing up in the 80's my mother is and was a master electrician and I still remember going into the laundry room with her to help get the laundry and there was a metal cloths hanger hanging from an electrical plug and was glowing red. She immediatly pushed me out of the room and I remember she grabbed the broom and knocked the cloths hanger off. I remember she went around the entire house and flipped all the recepticles to being ground up. Everytime I've replaced a recepticle in my house I've always put ground up because of this reason.

The notes about avoiding Face Up on/under counters was great - that's the nuance that we DIYers sometimes aren't aware of (and I've installed plenty of kitchen and undersink boxes, but never face up!). Thanks for the topic.

It was easy to guess what John's preference was going to be, since we had one of his own outlets staring at us through the whole video. Great useful video! Thanks.

I’ve been an electrician almost all my life I’m now retired at 71 years old. When I rebuilt my house in 2006 the NEC wanted ground up so that metal receptacle covers would not short out if it comes loose and falls onto a plug. I couple of years later they changed it back to ground down. Sometime prior to 2006 it was ok to mount the ground down. My house receptacles are all ground up because of when I installed them. Any new receptacles I install they are usually mounted down. The NEC has caused the confusion among electricians. Thanks. Steven B.

Thanks for covering this topic. I was asked this question 25 years ago, checked the code but didn't find any definitive answer. It's great to see your thorough review. Regarding safety of electrical convenience outlets, I worked with a group of German engineers 10 years ago and they were concerned that our US receptacle should be recessed like the ones in Europe instead of flush. Seems like a good question.

This happened to me. After my dad passed away, I unplugged the refrigerator to replace a part so Mom would still have a working water dispenser in the freezer door. Dad had replaced all of the switch plates and outlet plates in the house with brass plates. (I always thought they were gaudy.) Well, Dad didn't screw down the plate for the refrigerator. When I began to wiggle the plug out of the outlet, the brass plate dropped down immediately and landed on the two prongs. I saw a flash of light and heard a "crack" and the power to the outlets in the kitchen went out. The brass plate was scorched. And I don't remember why I was wearing rubber dish gloves, but the fingers on the right glove had scorch marks. It startled me a bit but what scared me the most was the thought of what could have happened if the breaker hadn't tripped. Those things work INSTANTLY! Thank you to whoever invented circuit breakers!!! PS: I remember now why I was wearing dish gloves. Refrigerator plugs are hard to get out of the outlet so I put on the gloves to get a better grip.

I saw the ground down receptacle behind you as soon as the video started :-) This answered questions about which is the right way I had floating around in my head. Well done, easy to understand, informative and no extra crap or fill, just the facts.

36 yr licensed electrician here and I always install ground down, I’ve never seen or heard of a fire from this method (Only a short circuit on occasion) and most customers are finally getting used to the polarized plug on the left side so to switch now would only make their lives more complicated and life is already too complicated. 🙂

Our local building inspector is awesome. I wired my entire addition. Only thing he made me change was to add hardwire smoke detectors in as an upgrade since i had access to exposed walls. In the final he tested all the outlets even the ones i never touched. Well worth the 125 dollars for permit.

I've always installed receptacles ground down, unless installing in an area where all receptacles were previously installed ground up. It has always seemed more intuitive to do so for the reasons you mentioned, as well as consistency in orientation when compared to light switches (ground and neutral left, hot right).

The best way to install receptacles --- if you are doing it for a specific appliance -- is to see if the power cord is a 90 degree cord and orient the receptacle to make sure stress is not on the cord. If nothing specific, I usually do ground down because most plug in wall timers, fragrance generators, like the ground down so when plugged in, the liquid oil doesn't spill out. Yes, there are some now that have a rotating plug built into them. The older ones were in a fixed position I've seen. In the end, install them how you like.

I love the installation method of having the receptacle upside down if it’s controlled by a light switch. It makes it so much easier to spot them in a room when setting it up. Hopefully the installer had the best idea of where a switched lamp should go. Sometimes though they don’t get it right and you end up with a switched outlet in a crazy spot. 0:57

I'm glad you said it doesn't matter, because I just finished installing an entire houseful of decora switches and outlets ground-down in a different home. The building I worked in as an employee had them ground-up. Since my own home is ground-down, that's what I went with.