Power outlets are topsy turvy - but does it matter?
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- čas přidán 25. 09. 2023
- The answer may surprise you!
Here's that follow-up I talked about at the end
• Tamper-resistant outle...
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Yes
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Ugh. I can't watch this right now. There is nothing in code. Arguments for both orientations. People have specifically asked nec for a policy and they have outright refused.
🙂🙃🙂🙃🙂😉
The right angle plug on my AC is upside down, debating rotating the outlet so the cable doesnt go straight up, but I rent. Could my landlord get mad at me for such a simple procedure? I have access to the breakers so there isnt an access issue.
It was legit shocking to hear "I DON'T CARE" from the man who made videos about the colour of turn signals, the perfect warm Christmas lights, did a deep dive on different lantern technologies...
I just didn't know Alec had it in him!
You must not drive or have never driven without Amber indicator lights/turn signals..
He's 100% right about turn signal color. If anything, he's too calm about it.
Or the video complaining that he can't get turn signals to sync up on old cars.
He really shattered my expectations this time
I do fuckin hate those brake light coloured indicators on American cars 😅 so annoying.
As a former " throw the knives at the wall" champion, I am absolutely shocked at how the world has taken the sport over the past few years.
Pun intended!
champion where exactly? I went to state and didnt see ya? i went to the nationals and you werent there? i was throwing knives at walls in effin luxembourg and were you around? nope. I CALL BS. BOO THIS FRAUD.
i might be thinking of volleyball....but just in case BOO HIM ANYWAY
@@OsX86H3AvYI saw him at the nationals, when he made that final throw the atmosphere was electric
And as a compulsive yardstick-wall-rester, i'm terrified nobody knows the technical term for it is "Mustardcatching"
rewind for your pleasure @7:42
"Do you know how many games of throwing knives at the wall have been ruined thanks to these terrible plugs?" had me dying
The "at least one" follow up is what got me
I'm CACKLING at that line.
I'm trying to decide if that or the "three-plonged" blooper was funnier.
Laughed so damn hard
I almost spit my tea across the room when you said "Outside of Boston, most people don't play 'throw the knives at the wall.'" lolz
What I took away from this is the correct, best orientation is "Sideways, with ground plugs on opposite sides from each other so two right angle plugs can be used together" and I'm all for this idea personally.
Why opposite sides? Why not just upright(ground pin down) but side by side, like 2 faces next to each other?
@josiahferrell5022 that would work too, though I'm not sure which would be harder to wire up. Iirc the wires plug into the sides of the sockets, and by having then next to each other you run the risk of a short or having electricity arc. If they're just flipped from each other the wires wouldn't be closer than if they both faced the same way.
Some right angle plugs are now being designed with a 45* orientation to the vertical of 'stacked' outlets. I like these.
Sort of reminds me of the 'specialty' housings I've seen in places like professional kitchens & chemistry labs which are intended to be installed "sideways" - so the plugs are side-by-side instead of over-under, but oriented upright.
This is what we need!
15:12 Not only does the 45° angle mean you can put two plugs in adjacent sockets in an outlet, it also works if those two sockets are side-by-side instead of stacked! I really wish more plugs came like this; it makes things so much tidier.
Me too, I really appreciate a 45 degree angle plug. I can move my furniture closer to the wall without having to worry about smashing a cable and starting a fire. It should be the default plug style without question.
Side by side is pretty much all you see in the uk due to the nature of the cable coming from the plugs extending below them.
or buy 45° degree angle outlets. So you don't need to care so much about who manufactures the cord.
Here in schuko-land it's common for power strips to have 45° angles for their sockets so you can use 4-8 right angle plugs without interference. Wall sockets are usually vertical, unlike the UK with their giant fuse box/plug hybrids, but it's less of an issue since neither socket or plug has an up or down orientation and the plugs are much more securely held than the US ones (sockets that actually use the retaining bar holes excepted, not that I ever encountered one when I lived in California).
But then it's annoying to use when the cord points away from where you want it to go.
The thing that annoys me about the ones in my house installed "properly" is that all of the decorative night lights I have end up being upside down because of that prong that's larger. My hair dryer and several other things end up having to be plugged in upside down with the cord coming off the top rather than the bottom. I'm having all my outlets changed to the "face" orientation so they work with my appliances and night lights.
You can probably do it yourself just make sure the power is off. You just need a screw driver
most night lights have a little screw in them to flip them without having to turn the outlet upside down, just loosen it, turn it right side up, then re-tighten the night light. Thats what i do with mine. I hope this helps
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The bubbling Christmas night light just won't work upside down
Electrician here. There are a few receptacles around houses that get installed ground up as standard in my company. Ill usually set receptacles ground up under sinks for disposals whips. They factory installed whips tend to be right-angled plugs and interfere with available storage. Ill also set them ground up behind gas ovens that have igniters and clocks. People like to hang things behind and set things on the valve plate. If somebody misses the hook when they hang a metal spatula and drop it on the plug behind the oven, it keeps it from shorting. Same goes for washers and dryers and any other kind of slide-in/foot-mounted appliances. Basically if the environment would funnel flat things to the recept, I'll set them ground up.
But engineers at the yacht company I used to work for disagree. Plugs tend to fall out of your "proper" orientation more than the correct way. Also, plugs tend to break out the plastic above the ground hole in a working environment. I was an inspector of finished yachts and wrote them up countless times for the plugs being upside down or the ground hole being broken out.
I'd been trained in Navy electricity/ electronics that having prongs up lets person see where NOT to touch, as the video shows.
As a remodeling contractor, I can confirm that the tape-measure scenario is a.) real, and b.) will scare the pants off you. 😅 I almost welded my tape to an uncovered live outlet once, and it still has a sharp notch in the blade that I have to watch out for.
This was my introduction to this issue as well. Scared the heck out of me at the time.
Is it worth covering the notch with packing tape?
Yes, but with changes to circuit breaker design, is that even a problem that's going to exist in 50 years? Even today, I don't see this being a particularly common problem to have. Between the GFCI and AFCI being mandated, Fresh Princing the outlet doesn't really do anything that the advanced features don't do better. Then there's AFCI that's likely to be incorporated in every single circuit at some point, rather than just the relatively long list of rooms that it's currently required for.
You'd likely get far more safety out of making it easier to replace loose outlets that can't retain the items plugged into them any more than flipping them upside down.
Did it myself several years back. To this day I've got to fiddle with that tape to get it to fully retract.
Most circuit breakers take a couple milliseconds to open, enough time for nasty sparks and welding if it's a dead short. Most electricity related injuries are caused by secondary events, like falling off the ladder when instinctively retreating from the loud bang.
I still have my dads old aluminum 4-foot ruler with two small bites taken out of the edge. They were caused when I was a tyke, it was leaned up against a wall, and my clumsy 6 year old self went flying by and knocked it over. It tipped and landed on a plug. It just happened to land behind its balance point, so it pivoted on the prongs. When it hit level, it shorted those prongs and POW!, vaporized those two little bites right off the edge. One in a zillion, but boy was it exciting! Literally a once-in-a-lifetime, so I'm still not flipping my outlets.
I’m so glad I can continue to play throw knives at the wall without having to constantly worry. Thank you Alec from technology connections.
I'm STILL chuckling at Steve Mould's homage to your presentation style and for you to now be directly addressing him in your blooper reels is making it even better.
What video was that again?
@@eclectic-kitty it happens just after the one-minute mark in *This "perpetual motion" device is really clever*
Absolutely hilarious!
@@Leron... You can get the joke by the power of watching two videos
Yes and weirdly hostile. Either some great acting or the homage by Steve was unappreciated. Everyone loves a good CZcams creator beef. I hope we can see the escalation increase in a subtle but definite "Those who know, know" kinda way.
This reminds me of my dorm room in college where a horizontal metal shelf hanger was installed right above an outlet. If my roommate and I weren't careful, the plug blades would short out on the support and trip the breaker for our side of the hall. Inevitably it happened one evening when one of our hallmates was typing up a paper he inexplicably hadn't saved in over an hour. We could hear him screaming two doors down.
From experience, I bet the paper turned out better the second time around anyway.
This is why I love Google Docs (perhaps there's something better, but.) It autosaves without needing to do anything. I don't have to give it a file name or save it to a location, it's just saved and so is the history. Cloud accessible, sharability, and it's free.
I've lost so many writings over the years, that I write my longer social media posts in it, too. Just not worth rolling a late-night sanity check when an app fumbles.
What was he typing his paper in? All of MS Word, LibreOffice Writer and Google Docs silently save every few keystrokes, and have done so for over a decade now. Word and LibreOffice save to recovery files and offer to restore them when you launch the program next, and Google Docs saves the document directly.
Lol. You just reminded me when I had something similar happen in my old dorm back 20 years ago (fuck it’s been that long). Our dorms electricity could barely handle a toaster let alone a microwave. The electricity was set up that a block, which is 6 dorms, all shared 1 circuit. And it was known that if you wanted to use a real microwave in your dorm and to a refrigerator microwave, you had to be sure no one else was using anything with a high draw. Enter finals week, which for my school meant coffee, coffee and more coffee, did I mention there was a lot of coffee. Almost every room had a coffee maker going because we had no place to buy a cup of coffee. 1 guy had brought in a smallish microwave. The stars aligned one night as his entire block had turned on their coffee makers and computers (desktops were very common then) and he turned on his microwave. 2 guys were working on their final papers and lost a lot of progress. The situation devolved and the guy with the microwave got hurt pretty bad.
@@rjgaynor8 oof.
I was taught that an 'upside down' plug was usually controlled by a separate switch. Usually specific to a floor lamp. More so common in older homes that didn't have built in lighting
He mentioned that in his video on switched outlets if I remember correctly
What do you mean older homes that don't have ceiling lighting? I've seen more older homes with ceiling lighting. Then I've seen brand new homes and yes when there's only one outlet upside down in a room. It usually means it's controlled by a switch. It's not in the code but it's a go- to unofficial method
i saw this in an apartment
My (at various times throughout) Great Grandmother and Great Aunt's, then my Aunt's house is one of those "older" homes; push button switches (1 for on, 1 for off), pretty sure cloth wrapped wiring, etc. Including ceiling lights in multiple rooms. And none of the outlets were the common "face" style, just 2 slot outlets (hot and neutral only). My Aunt has since sold the house and moved into something newer. Not sure what the new owners did with the place.
As far as the "upside down" face plugs denoting switch operated function, this is the first time I have heard of that. I was taught it was to prevent things falling across the hot and neutral in case the plug wasn't inserted all the way, or got knocked out a little.
No, I have never seen that
I'm really enjoying my UK Type G plug. It's only design flaw is that its very painful to step on and always lands face down
Is it made by LEGO? They REALLY hurt when stepped on ! :P
@@FormulabruceStepping on a Type G plug can result in a puncture wound through the foot: I speak from personal experience.
..and it is fused so that you need skills tools and spare parts to find and repair faults, Oh and its shutters need to be released by an earth pin, so you need an eath pin even when you don't need an earth pin. And its big and expensive.
Try stepping on a type I, the angled plug always gouges out a chunk
Uk sockets and plugs are the best😊
The "throw the knives at the wall" bit had me rolling.
A proud Boston tradition
@@conqu2I'm not sure if I got the joke
I've actually had the "foreign objects" scenario come to pass -- a coin fell down behind a sideboard and shorted out the plug. Very startling when it went off.
That's your jeton moment.
For me is was a necklace that fell off the nightstand. Since it was flexible chain it would have shorted out in either orientation.
Me too!!! Wife's gold necklace fell off the dresser and had a 1/2 inch vaporized.
Same kinda thing happened to us. Was surely a shocking surprise.
I live in Chicago and when you mentioned the sideways outlets I spun around my room in disbelief to realize that all of them are indeed sideways and I never thought a thing of it. Thanks for heightening my awareness of my environment I suppose.
As a curious first grader, I was able to notice that electric appliances got whatever it was that they needed out of those two pin outlets on the wall. This was before three hole outlets became the thing. I was also able to figure out that metal was an important factor. It was then that I conducted my first known scientific experiment. It involved bending the legs of a hair pin and scraping the plastic blob off the ends.
I was able to prove that electricity was dangerous if proper precautions were ignored.
For an Austrian engineer like me, your wall socket videos are always so entertaining!
I constantly go back and forward from "wow, how crappy and dangerous are these" to "well, it´s only a 110 volts" :D
For an American like me, I'm just happy to know that your country doesn't have kangaroos and Foster's beer.
Man, my countrymen suck at geography. :)
Bitte habt ein tolles Oktoberfest
Ha! As an American electric consumer I do the same! (dangerous/only 110v) 😆
@@migueldelmazo5244 I actually read it as Australian and got confused
Exacly this but in europe. Only 110v
I couldn't care less, I live in Europe.
Electronic engineer here, 50 years experience. This is an excellent video and explains a number of questions I've had about why plug designs are as they are. Suggestion: clarify what shocks are uncomfortable vs. those that could be life-threatening. If a momentary shock is across one finger or between two fingers on the same hand, it's educational. If it's between two hands and so passes through the chest, that could be a more terminal education.
I'm stealing the term "terminal education" 😂😂😂
I was told that the ground prong should be on the bottom because when the plug tilted down the ground would still be fully in, preventing shock. Is that correct?
@@nancylindsay4255 ground pins don't prevent shock. They only trip the breaker when the shock does occur.
@@nancylindsay4255 A common misconception is that the ground prevents shock, it's more of a "signal wire" that detects potential to ground. Let's say your toaster is damaged, the metal body shouldn't become electrified because it's grounded. So if you plug it in the breaker should trip.
My impression is that the ground pin is typically grounds the metal chassis. So, if there is a short, it has a lower resistance connection to ground vs., for example, a human body touching the outside of the metal toaster.
This has the effect of tripping the breaker, only because the lower resistance connection to ground causes the amperage draw to go beyond the rating of the breaker... however, the idea of the separate ground is to given the AC power lower resistance path to ground than the human body.
I say this out of boundless respect and admiration: when you call something pedantic, I take that as an expert opinion.
I worked at a senior living facility in their corporate office. We once got to take a tour of one of our facilities, and they were really proud of installing the plugs upside down, because it was “safer” for the residents.
I love you unintentionally showing the dangers of a flathead and a wall receptacle at 8:30 by immediately jamming the screwdriver into the ground socket.
Who even uses flathead screws any more? Like it is 1899?
@@poulhenneI wonder if it’s because it’s nearly impossible to drive one of those screws with an impact driver, thus reducing the possibility of cracking the cover plate. Probably not, though.
@@poulhenne I hate flathead screws with a passion, however most wall plates for plugs and lightswitches us the darn things.
@@poulhenne I always assumed it was for aesthetics. An exposed flathead screw looks slightly nicer than an exposed phillips-head.
The paint on a phillips-head is also more likely to get scratched because the screwdriver naturally cams out when the screw is tightened all the way, scratching a bit of paint out of the "plus" in the process. Flathead screw drivers don't cam out and thus don't scratch the paint nearly as much (unless the screw is already damaged).
Yeah, they use slotted screws as part of a stupid effort to camouflage it into the wallplate.
My kids were attracted to the faces in the wall outlets when they were very young. Putting the ground prong on the top would solve that. In related news, some brilliant company decided it would be better to make the child protective covers clear, so the outlets STILL looked like faces. The opaque white ones were the most effective at keeping tiny fingers off of the funny faces on the walls.
It wouldn't have stopped my brother from noticing a breeze coming from it, blowing back into it and getting a minor spittle shock - ah the memories of youth. When you mention kid-proof I wonder if that's why very old doors were designed with the door handle out of a child's reach which is where electrical outlets should be.
telling them it's a screaming face because that's the face they'll be making if they mess with it.
When growing up I though that European plugs, mainly talking about Dutch and Germany here, it's called the Type F plug if you are interested uses a side-ground, which means there are two ground strips on either side of the socket, which fit into cutouts on the plugs. Which means that can fit in the socket in two ways.
Also interesting to note that the Type E with a ground pin in the socket and a ground hole in the plug is more comonly used in Belgium and France, but most devices now a days have a Type E/F plug that will fit both sockets and makes it very convient.
We also have a special child safety socket that basically works by pressing a plug against the socket, turning it a quarter turn and then pressing through.
This contraption is really effective at preventing children from well trying to put stuff into it, it is also effective at preventing you from plugging in your charger at night 😂
But luckily you can buy kits that just stick onto existing sockets to make them child proof, which you can remove once your children are passed the age of putting things to see what happes haha.
Americans tend to look at Europe as the "old world" and as "old fashioned" but there is a good reason why most nations addopt EU standards and see the proof mark of Made in Europe / Made to European Standards as a true hallmark of quality and why the "Made in USA" has really fallen from the most desired to "better than Made in China".
Which isn't caused by US products getting worse, but mostly by US standards really not having changed in the last few decades, with the exception of really agregious lack of standards in some industries.
And if the US and US citizens want to reclaim their market leading position and be able to dictate standards across the world, you guys have to start demanding change, cause the rest of the world isn't gonna keep waiting for US regulators to catch up forever :)
I had to remove a clear one from an outlet we hadn’t used for many years. And I had to use a flathead to pry it out because it had gotten stuck to the outlet.
do your kids have long enough fingernails and good enough dexterity to remove them? it shouldnt be about how tantalizing they look, if you buy good plug sockets, your kids will be safe.
I love that he takes _shower thoughts_ and turns them in to multi-part exposés. Must be the cleanest man alive!
You are the only channel i could watch an 18 minute video on wall plugs and love it! It's weird i always see GFCI plugs installed correctly but never the standard ones!
All of the outlets in every one of my apartments in Quebec have been mounted ground up. When I first moved here I looked into why, and a lot of places just said "they're safer" and cited the same reasons here. I have yet to be electrocuted during a traditional game of Jette le Couteau á la Mur, but it does come with the additional annoyances mentioned.
I do like how one gets to yell "Criss de Tabernak!" when the knife gets lodged.
@@davidjames4915 Calice ! mdr
L'esti de batard de plug a encore explosé caliss.
I work at a medical college. A couple years ago, one of our wings went through a major renovation. I noticed that the electricians were installing all of the outlets upside down with the ground pin on top. I asked one of them why. He said, "I dunno, it's what the boss wants."
That's code for hospitals
@@danl6634 We're not a hospital, though. Accordingly, the other outlets in the building are not upside down. That's why I wonder why they were doing it.
"I dunno, it's what the boss wants." describes most of the coin flip choices at my office.
Probably, the electrical subcontractors had in their contract this very clause. Ground plug up.
Code requires the U ground to face up because most people use their thumb on top of a plug to pull it out. In turn your thumb can touch the metal prong so if the outlet is not installed with the U ground facing up a person can potentially touch the hot and neutral prongs with their thumb as they remove a plug.
I'm a biomedical equipment technician, and it was explained to us that hospitals use the ground up position because of the loose plug and foreign object issue. In practice I've only seen a couple of clinics that didn't follow this rule. On another note, there are "hospital grade" outlets. These are denoted by a small green dot on the receptacle. These have higher blade tension to hold the plug in better, in fact, there is a standard plug tension that hospital outlets must meet. Hospitals can also receive penalties if a power strip is found in use in most environments. It has to be a dire situation to be an approved use of a strip. The power strip must also be hospital grade, and are insanely expensive! I think the last one I ordered were almost $200 each!
I swear you have made videos on the most fascinatingly mundane things, and I love almost every one of them that I've come across and not searched for them once. It's often a delight.
I worked maintenance in nursing homes for 28 years. I ran into this issue one year from the annual health and safety inspection. We were using beaded chain (the kind you see on a lot of ceiling fans) on our over bed lights. The inspector told me about a fire in some nursing home due to the chain falling back into the bent plug. We had to change all of them with nylon cord.
Yea that sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. Glad to here you guys took preventive measures to keep those older and or disabled family members safe. Thanks🙏 I have never paid attention wether the reading lamps at my mother’s assisted living apartment had metal chains. I’ll be sure to check when I visit tomorrow
Would it not be easier to change all outlets to safer ones ? If the building code , when lead (pipes, solder and flux) in public water systems was banned in 1986 In US , would have mandated better outlets and plugs , if building has renovation done, most of US homes would most likely have new outlets by now .
With water pipes you need to rip old systems out , with outlets its just to change it , cost is what those outlets cost , what is that $5 per outlet ?
We changed old two pin outlets to Euro plugs , ban came in 1997 here in Finland , starting with new buildings , now you should have even arc protection .
I still have in summer cottage , one old outlet , its nearly as dangerous than American , if you use 50 year old plugs , you do have outlet area a bit below surface .
As far as I know the rules about lead pipes allowed older installations to remain until they need replacement anyway, as the risk of lead contamination is negligible with normal running water flowing in the pipe, however a change to outlets and/or plugs would potentially require a wholesale replacement as compatibility would break (obviously adaptors could mitigate this and it would be fine but.. guess people aren't that creative?)
@@pete_lind It's a similar vein to the LED/Incandescent bulb fights... You gotta consider, not only just how incredibly BIG the U.S. really is... BUT also that the U.S. industrialized like NOBODY else in the world, and the shear numbers that encounters. It doesn't even matter any longer who does the actual physical manufacturing, either. The numbers that were once so ungodly above and beyond the facility or imaginings in the 1890's became the "default normal" by the 1920's... and by the 60's if you couldn't contribute a few million a year, you just couldn't be a manufacturer...
The side effect is warehouseS (cap-s for emphasis) completely stocked floors to ceilings with the old "dangerous" outlets. It's just how industry rolls in the U.S. and to fail to "get big or go home" is the obvious hindrance to competition.
There REALLY WERE warehouses of unused incandescent lights all over the country, and corporations that owned them threatened seriously with losing their figurative asses on the advancement of LED-lighting, so there will continue to be such arguments and fights for years to come, even if it seems relatively quietly going away... Same with the corporate blockade on updating anything in the electrical code elsewhere. It's gotten along fine with fairly seldom accidents and injuries over the bigger picture, so the U.S. business world is fine with letting Darwin sort out the end consumers.
It shouldn't surprise you that when the building codes and National standards outlawed lead in the U.S. rather than dig up and retrofit all the old pipes for new ones, they added phosphates to the water supply and left the existing infrastructure alone. LOTS of American cities and towns and yes, EVEN houses and apartment buildings still have lead fittings in their pipes from city mains all the way through... The lead crisis in Flint Michigan was down to the city council failing to add the phosphates when they decided to send their own pipes to the lake to get water, instead of paying the slightly higher price for the processing plants to continue supplying it. It's like that ALL OVER THE COUNTRY...
AND there are "Scenic Historical Districts" where Historical Societies and Associations have lobbied their way into local governance and you literally have to get permission from the city to replace things like the shingling on your roof or your rain guttering system, and they'll send you back a list of "appropriate products" to choose from when (and if) they even give you that permission... SO you can figure the odds of getting permission to gut a historical house out and retrofit the plumbing, because you'll get inspectors up your backside by the dozen... and pay them servicing fees ON TOP of the local taxes and the city's requisite considerations.
There's a dollar to be made, so you can bet your last ounce of dying breath they'll find a way to suck it out of you. ;o)
@@pete_lind I don’t know the details of the transition you mentioned. We’re the new outlets somehow backwards compatible with old plugs? Or was it a situation where everyone needed to pick up a ton of adapters to use old plugs in new outlets (and vice versa).
The thing with lead pipes is they never mandated old buildings to retrofit, they just required new installations to stop using lead. Most people would see no observable change from the regulation. Unless the old and new plugs are somehow compatible, then I would think the transition would require several years of irritation with adapters.
I honestly dont think most people here view the safety issues with the current outlets as being significant enough to warrant the inconvenience of fixing it.
I'm always amazed at how they always know what exactly the wrong orientation is for my application when using 45 degree plugs.
They are designned by Murphey
I really love this channel. You splice humor into education nicely. Keep it up!
The Chicago horizontal outlet orientation was very strange to us when we moved here 20 years ago. However, now I see several benefits such as neither plug is drooping over the other and it does just look nicer. I’m sure you’re right that it is probably due to the conduit requirement but now anything else seems strange.
Chicago convention is ground down on vertical receptacles and ground on the right for horizontal receptacles.
Hot take, but Chicago-style is almost right. Just flip it over so that the neutral's on top, and it's perfect (other than actually fitting the box)
Electrician here- The Code called for ground up in commercial applications for a very short time, but now officially either orientation is considered correct. Some old fogeys are very, very particular about it, no one else cares.
Edit: also, aside from someone standing barefoot on a grounded steel floor while getting sprayed down with saltwater, many casual contacts with a piece of metal that happens to touch the live pin result in nothing happening unless you bridge the metal to a grounded surface and make a spark and pop a breaker.
The quirk with hospitals, best I can tell, is the call for “hospital-grade” outlets in certain spaces and those marketed as ground up.
What I was told by facilities is that it’s to comply with preventing loose cords in patient areas but like you said; old fogeys.
I’ve stared at them ground up for so long that’s just “normal” for me.
Moreover.. in my entire life I've never known a single person who died from 120v to the finger from a wall receptacle, which would easily run into the thousands if every shock among us was counted collectively (everyone I know that is; not the 1-off weird ones you see in the news once a decade or so)
It's a blessing and a curse that you only have 120 V to these sockets. On one hand, it's not that harmful that you have unsafe sockets. On the other hand, surely you would have safer sockets by now. The change to safer sockets wasn't without its quirks in Europe either but it was well worth it.
@@jattikuukunen now that said I definitely wouldn't mind more 240v appliances around the house myself just for the bit of efficiency like elec kettle, hair dryers, space heater things like that, but I understand and I get it.. having decades and decades and decades of what we've got, it's absolutely unfeasible to even offer those especially since hardly anyone would install the special sockets, even some of the biggest window unit AC's you can buy now run on 15a 110v, they're good enough that no one really buys the 220v one anymore so you rarely see them in the big box stores. You won't even find 30a horizontal blade sockets (I forget what those were called) anywhere but old houses anymore
@@jattikuukunen Then there's also the Brazilian plug, which is a great design in therms of passive protection (the sleeved pins and recessed socket), but just cause they HAVE to screw things up in Brazil and milk us some extra, it's the exact same thing as the Swiss plug but with some small fraction of a millimeter higher or lower on the ground pin, just to be another plug type.
I was a victim of the “falling metal wall plate” scenario. I had the room painted and the painter removed the wall plates. Afterwards he forgot to screw in the plate. I went to plug something in and the plate fell down and shorted out. Sparks and a nasty char mark was the result.
Bleach and a good soaking should get the char mark out, otherwise just buy a new pair.
Wow! That could have been a whole lot worse.
I replaced the metal wall plates. They should be prohibited by code.
Is he still alive?
_... Sparks and a nasty char mark was the result._
And yet, you're alive to tell the tale.
I've actually had a metal sign/poster slide down the wall and make contact with a partially dislodged plug that caused quite a fireworks show...and it didn't have a ground plug. After that my house went sideways. So I get the argument, and appreciate your discourse!
This is a very delicate subject and I only trust you to cover it. Loved it!
Type E, F and H plugs we have here and in Europe have recessed sockets so that even if slightly pulled out (which is also very unlikely due to other design decisions) nothing falling on them will be able to touch the live wire.
And most plugs are designed in a way which allows you to actually pull on them. They always have a grip part
@@sakurajin_noa In the UK, our plugs are way too bulky to wire them in any other way than the "norm" with the Earth pin at the top
That, and we don't care about kids getting their fingers in them because they simply wouldn't fit and if they DID fit somehow they'd meet a plastic shutter
True our type F or in German "schuko" is pretty nice and even really old tech. Seems like it's one of our better Exports to nearby country's :P
@@waqasahmed939 I mean we are talking about Europe here, not the UK
@@MegaPompoen Pretty sure the UK is in Europe
As an electrician, I was once in a situation where a co worker was filling a room with 150' of metal fish tape. It ended up spoiling over the very loose plug of a fan, and shot sparks all around the room. But of course, the cord wasn't grounded so it wouldn't have mattered, as you said.
I've done something similar. There was an extension cord on the ground near where I was feeding a fish tape. It was still in the conduit, and I felt it getting hot in my hands. The two pieces weren't fully connected. And it didn't damage the fish tape. I think it tripped the breaker, but not quickly.
When using cheap extension cords, the voltage drop is pretty high. High enough that it won't actually trip a breaker due to the high resistance and therefore low current. But, it'll still give you something to chew on if you touch the live bits.
Why did the room need to be filled with all that?
@@Kremithefrog1 Because plastic fish tape would have been too bulky.
@@IceBergGeoEven the cheapest extension cord wouldn't have a high enough resistance to avoid flipping a breaker when shorted. More likely that the fish tape only made contact with the hot pin and was also in contact with something grounded (like a conduit or pipe). Steel is a surprisingly lousy electrical conductor, so over a few meters it could definitely avoid immediately flipping the breaker while also getting really hot.
Love this channel, and I'm cracking up at the concept of "throw the knife at the wall" being a game. 😂
Thanks for this fascinating video on outlet orientation.
Your ability to make me interested in something I have never thought nor cared about, and actually provide a sense of enjoyment and education in the process, is amazing. This is one of my favorite channels.
Ditto. Especially since I'm in the UK where this just isn't an issue.
I’m an electrician of many years exp (I’m lvl 47) and I must tell you, I have never even meet anyone who has been troubled by the very singular and specific safety scenarios in your vid. And you’re quite right about the NEC; even article 517 only goes as far as tamper resistance in pediatric facilities.
Throw knives at the wall does sound enticing though.
The CEC now requires TR for all buildings of residential occupancy, because children often live in homes.
The whole thing is an issue made up by some idiot who probably gets paid to make up nonexistent problems. In fact, the whole tamper resistant requirement is another non-issue probably legislated by someone who takes money from a company that would make a lot of money by forcing everyone to replace all their outlets. Even GFCI is a solution for a problem most people don't have. In my 50+ years on this planet, I have never had and never known anyone who would have benefited from any of these now mandated devices.
@@maxwelllewis4486 Not in my house they don't.
11:45 when he explains how the 90° plugs are always oriented that way truely convinced me. Amazing work Alec. This the video Imma show people to convince them to follow u dawg
Damn. I was 16 minutes in before you mentioned sleeving the pins. I was all ready to show you a photo of any new plug in Australia for the last 20 years. Maybe they fast tracked it here because we use 240v, not 120. Such a simple fix. Glad you mentioned it.
In my 70+ years of life, I've been terrified by many things, but I can't remember the "orientation of receptacles" making the cut of scary things worth remembering. In fact, the times I've been shocked by less-than-fully-inserted plugs, and shocked by other things, my dad always reminded that my most recent shock was just one more thing to watch out for. During my following career in electronics I've discovered way more ways of being way more shocked way more often than the errant finger in the socket. The aluminum Christmas tree tinsel falling onto the tracks of the electric train set below was way more interesting!
Try a houseful of CATS... While none of the electrical nuisances in my childhood turned particularly injurious, there were LOTS of pretty interesting situations... ;o)
A much bigger danger from my experience is the insulation on cheap wires breaking and leaving exposed wires that can easily short.
Even then, the only time I've been shocked by 120V AC is when a garbage (probably not approved) phone charger/ac adapter quite literally fell apart as I was pulling it out. The whole outer casing came off and when I tried to pull the receptacle and the circuit board inside out from the outlet so I could throw it away, I accidentally touched a component of the adapter and got a nasty shock from it. I stopped buying cheap shit after that, most of my AC adapters now are Anker ones because they're smaller and better.
Basically, the biggest risk by far is cheap products that are built so poorly they expose 120V AC when they inevitably fall apart.
Right, this argument, and even more ridiculous arguments routinely made by Euros about their supposed superiority, are absolutely ridiculous. Australia is also particularly ridiculous. None of these supposed "safety" arguments are worth one additional penny to fix, you have to be almost suicidal or willfully negligent to get killed or seriously injured by any of these supposed problems.
So it is a common occurrence to get shocked by that type of plug?
If that's the case then I think it's insane that they are still in use.
@@Jehty_ Not common... The USA is an ENORMOUS place, and that leaves spaces where there aren't building inspectors or great enforcement... Electrical hazard by plugs outright are relatively small, even without shrink-wrapping the prongs or anything, it's rare to have even the occasional finger-zap without someone doing something a bit zany or nefarious outright... AND kids get into the damnedest sh*t for sometimes unfathomable reasons (curiosity?)...
Even so, with a finger-zap, when the prongs are both RIGHT THERE... the shock goes across A finger... you jump and let go, and that's generally it... no worse for the wear and only a little rattled. We hear stories, but until it gets to shoving a pocket knife into a piece of electrical equipment or screwing around with screwdrivers or silverware in toasters (yes, there ARE Americans that stupid) real harm from household circuitry is pretty unheard of, that's why someone getting electrocuted in a shower or bath hit headlines. ;o)
As a writing professor, I'm always delighted with your scripts. Thanks for the effort you put into these videos - they're always informative and well executed!
Great job! This is the most comprehensive video I've seen about this topic. However, it didn't address code making, product manufacturing, or standards committees influence on these questions. All of these products are also subject to manufacturing process limitations. And the astronomical costs of making even small changes to these designs. The best idea may be to provide GFCI protection for every receptacle circuit. And the NEC has done a lot toward making that happen.
In the UK we have multiple levels of protection, from fuses within the plug to RCD and MCD breakers in the consumer unit. Even with the breaker off you can still trip the unit by touching neutral to earth on the circuit you are trying to extend (by way of a fused connector, of course).
Pretty thorough piece, THANKS!
Having looked at many apartments in the Chicagoland area, I can confirm that not only the classic vertical(0°) and horizontal (90°) positions exists, but a whole plethora of other options as well. Many landlords seem to prefer 37.2°, for example.
"Many landlords seem to prefer 37.2°" - is there any tolerance in that figure?
My mother got a new refrigerator ( a long time ago ) with a right angle plug with the ground pin on top. She told me to flip the outlet. Of course having worked in the field I just had to have the quite common gall to 'properly' inform her that's impossible. She called me a liar and 'questioned' my professionalism, so we entered into a spittle blowing contest which I decided to end about a half hour later by pulling the refrigerator out and scalding her about her impossible dream scape! But I didn't say anything as I quieted down humbly and went outside to my truck to get my toolbox. When I unplugged the refrigerator and looked unbelievably at it sure enough the ground pin was on top.
The first moral of the story is sometimes you run across the strangest most bizarre things. And moral number two is, sometimes the impossible happens and mother is right about something in your chosen profession.
My mother-in-law is a self-taught medical diagnostician like that. I feel you.
@@k.b.tidwell Sometimes the self-taught people can be more knowledgeable about certain aspects. They don't have the "well this is how it was always done" mentality that some professionals fall victim to.
Living outside the US with ground pins always going on top, the surprised Pikachu faces on your walls always give me a good chuckle
So it's extra amusing to hear that there's actual discourse about this
7:53 gota love the dedication to have a live demonstration of what could actually happen if that gap is bridged
I went on holiday to America recently, and i was really surprised at how loose the plugs were compared to other places I've been. Living in the UK, plugs will only expose pins if you VERY deliberately pull it from the wall, at which point, the connection is already broken.
Edit: Also almost all plugs are 90 degree plugs.
@@KeyDx7 Also, frequently used plugs. If they stayed in a hotel where people were plugging and unplugging things everyday, then it would be more surprising if they werent worn out
@@KeyDx7 yeah but no matter what no one can argue that UK and EU plugs aren't superior to US ones in every single way... it just makes sense since they could look at everything wrong with the US one and improve on it.
@@KeyDx7 But then, perhaps that's an additional point, even old plugs and outlets in the UK still work fine, they don't wear out in such an equivalent manner.
I know what ethstring means though, when I visited NYC in 2000 I was surprised at how iffy the wall sockets & cable connections were.
About 20 years ago I began seeing UK plugs with a chunky switch and LED indicator already included, which are totally awesome (perfect for extension leads that don't have their own switch for each socket). They were very cheap, 45p at the time from B&Q. I bought a whole box, so useful for devices such as soldering irons. But then after a few years they vanished from stores, returning some years later in basically the same design but a lot more expensive, needlessly so I would presume. Marketed as 'new' of course, but the idea isn't.
In the UK I reckon the only reason why wall sockets get replaced is if they physically break somehow (very rare), as part of a full rewiring or just for cosmetic reasons, such as vintage brass outlets tarnishing. Funny thing, when a property is rewired, all the existing sockets are replaced even if there's nothing wrong with them. Great opportunity to nab some free sockets for future use. The place I rent was rewired a few years ago, so now I have a whole bag of spares. It doesn't take much to clean them up so they're good as new.
A bigger issue perhaps with UK sockets (and indeed plugs) is more of a hidden one, namely the quality of the actual wiring connections inside the socket or plug. A lot of electricians have pretty shoddy wiring abilities, grud knows why, and many home users have little clue either. When I've removed cables from plugs or worked on wall sockets, encountering less than ideal stripped ends is all too common.
Some decades ago it was common for products to be sold with no plug attached at all, one bought them separately, which at least provided some aesthetic choice at the expense of a little hidden cost, but it meant that as a child in I'd say pre-80s Britain it was common to be taught how to wire a plug, whereas as nowadays I bet few parents bother, or even know themselves.
As for standing on the pins of a loose plug, that's just a clever extra design feature intended to pretrain future parents to the evils of loose Lego pieces. :)
Lastly, many UK plugs are separate to the cable, so they can at least be reused, but as mentioned this means the wiring needs to be decent, so one could argue the moulded plug has an advantage there even if it lacks reuse. That's an oddity I've noticed of some very old plus, the way the cord is gripped can be a little odd.
@@KeyDx7 The spectrum is part of the problem, that spectrum doesn't exist on the standard UK/EU plugs, if you find one that is 50 year old here it is still perfectly safe to use unless damaged by something else than everyday use.
@@KeyDx7 I mean it depends on code too / the electrician
In Pakistan, they typically use the two pin style plug sockets and we've got the odd UK sockets in the house too. The UK sockets are solid. The two pin style sockets, not so much
The house was built about a decade ago I believe
Furthermore, I think the outlets should be side by side horizontally rather than one on top of the other vertically. That way it would be easier to default to 90 degree plugs and would be so much nicer to organize and even lable.
Very nice video! Thanks!
The slight gain in safety is not worth the lost sanity of looking at an upside down outlet.
My entire house was wired that way, and look at me 🙃.
@@WilburJaywright must live in Australia
It must look like a face
That is how they're set up in American hospitals. It's part of the safety standard. What we're used to is upside down I think.
@@John-yh5gmexactly
I work in biomed (in-hospital medical equipment repair) and the biggest culprit of the hot/neutral up facing short I saw were stainless steel plate covers coming loose and dropping onto prongs. They can't use plastic covers in the OR, it's an infection control issue. 2nd biggest was instruments falling on sagging outlets.
the same is true in schools, maybe not the infection part. but i think it's code there too.
What is the socket itself made of if not plastic? But also, do the installers know about loctite?
Here's something else you guys could work on, along with making right-angle plugs the default: make including a ground pin the default too! The plug could have a ground pin even when the flex doesn't have a ground wire in it -- it'll help make the plug hold in the outlet more robustly, and would enable outlets to have shields over the live contacts that the ground pin pushes away. You know, the way we make them in countries where the plugs always DO have a ground pin...
The only way making right angle plugs the default would work would be to make them go off to the side or to change the orientation of the plugs. Right angle plugs block the outlets adjacent to them
@@nigeladams8321 Right angle plugs are pretty much the most common type in South Africa because our outlets are either alone or side by side, left and right. They're always 3 prong and 2 prong ones are straight and have their own special slot to be plugged in. So much would have to change in the US to adopt a system like that and I don't think it's practical for them.
@@Ariesyte I would love a revamp of our system but we can't get our gov to update signs let alone infrastructure
Thank you! I’m in a 1940 house where nothing makes sense. The bathroom outlet is inverted and it’s impossible to keep my hairdryer plugged in upside down! I finally got a 2-prong outlet adapter and plugged it in upside down so I could plug the hairdryer in right. Plus I like the little faces 😮
My older home has all the outlets ground prong up and it drives me insane. Power strips and cable management is an absolute nightmare. I’ve replaced a few and rotated them but this video hit me harder than you know. Great stuff my man, keep up the good work!
I work in a building that has them all ground pin up. When I asked about it the site electrician explained that plugging in something, angling it in from above it makes for a better ground-first contact.
But as someone who'd switched to using right-angle plugs for things wherever possible, they are an annoyance since they are now all angled upwards and therefore pull on the plug more.
I'd actually like to have the whole wallplate rotated 90deg (but the plug still "vertical") so that having them side-by-side ought to be better than one above the other.
My favorite part of the north american outlet faceplate is that they only use flat head screws. So if you want to remove the faceplate, you have to use a tool the perfect shape to fit into the prong slots. Granted, you should turn off the breaker, but the added risk is also nice.
Turn off the breaker just to remove the faceplate? I bet you fuck with socks on, too!
@@theguy9208 Firstly, LOL, Second, you gotta admit, using a flat head screw these days seems like a cunt move, the thing slips out and you gotta be perfectly paralell to undo it, if it hasn't already been knawed off by butter knives/coins/nail files
Yes, as a confirmation, look at 8:30 where Mr Technology Connections accidentially slips into the ground hole. That could as well have been the live socket...
@@adrianrehwald3253oh no! He might have been connected to ground!
Immm, no screwdriver is going to go in far enough to hit any metal inside the receptacle. It'll taper out way too wide to go in more than 1/8th of an inch. Also, this is plain Darwin award territory.
@8:49-ish: When I was a child, the church had metal wall plates. Once I was instructed to plug in something, and I shorted the plug to the plate. IIRC, I think I knocked out power for half the classrooms.
Fun times.
When I was a kid, I was making one of those DIY AM radios. When I went to tape the wire that acted as the antenna up to the wall it fell and bridged the gap causing a massive spark and the wall receptacle was still charred 15 years later. Thankfully it didn't start a fire, and I wasn't touching it, but it is definitely something that can and does happen....also can't remember for certain, but based on the electronics I would have had in my room at the time (alarm clock, small lamp,...) I doubt it even had a ground pin.
There is one good use case for installing receptacles with the ground pin up. The bed rooms of most modern homes have one receptacle powered through to a wall switch. I always install that plug "upside down" to make it clear that is is different from the rest.
I've actually heard several electricians make this claim as well. I had always thought it was a building code standard and never bothered to question it, and have always done this with outlets I install myself. Ground plug at the top = controlled by a switch somewhere.
That's arbitrary. You could achieve the same thing by using contrasting-color outlets, or just having some shape/texture element to the specific plug that is switched (and it's usually only one of the two, not both, and never consistently top or bottom)... In fact, I'd say using color (black for switched) and textured (knurled for switched) would be optimal: super obvious for most people with a glance, but still as ADA-friendly as asking a blind person to rub their hand against the outlet to figure out where the ground is). Also, in a perfect world, having a locking toggle on the outlet itself would be nice to turn this feature on/off - yes, that would cost a bit more, but those stupid plastic switch locks just look ridiculous.
I'm pretty sure that's standard on new builds now.
7:10 This actually happened at my place about a year ago: we had an extension cord behind my mom's dresser that ran to some Christmas lights in the hall. One night one of her bracelets (a thin metal chain) fell off the back of the dress and shorted it out... needless to say that it made quite a spark show: also ended up partly melting the bracelet to the plug as well.
The fact that someone watched this video and experienced it probably suggests that it's far more common than is suggested
@@edrose5045 People that have had issues with electrical safety are more likely to watch a video on electrical safety and comment on their issue, vs a large amount of people that have not had these issues, more at 10.
Edit: That being said, you shouldn't ignore electrical safety necessarily because a particular event is unlikely. "No matter how safe you are, accidents will happen", therefore it's best to be prepared in the event of one beforehand. Do a cost vs benefits analysis at your discretion.
I also managed to do this as a kid by pushing a paperclip off the back of my desk which fell onto a plug which wasn't all the way into the receptacle. Shorted out, big soot mark on the wall. But it was a two prong lamp cord so it would have happened either way.
It's a flexible chain, it would have drooped down on either side of the ground pin and shorted between the ground pin and the hot pin anyway...
Yep. My wife was cleaning the bathroom counter and hung a loose necklace from the nightlight. Poof!
I like that receptacle with both orientations. it lets you plug in two of the most common right angle plugs.
YES! I've said this for years about the right-angle plugs. The electrician who did our house put them all "right-side up" over my very loud protestations, with him insisting it was in the electrical code when I knew otherwise. Now I'm dealing with droopy wrong-way cords all the time....
I would've flipped them over myself, but I understand that not everyone is comfortable with doing that
As a European (Dane, specifically), I am shocked at how easily North American plugs can become partially unseated. Relatedly, I would find it very interesting, if you would do a "compare and contrast" of other plug types from around the world, especially the Euro Schuko type F as well as the Danish type K. Also type C is extremely common.
Can't forget the Type G as well. It's basically everything he complained about, solved (sleeved, grounded, standardised right angle).
And, yes, I went to the states with a MacBook charger and it was an awful and dangerous experience. It literally fell out the wall and sparked.
But we all agree that type G is the best.
It's also a feature, hypothetically (less likely to break when pulled). But it's super annoying when you have a heavy wall wart, or an old cord.
Danish one looks happy ;)
@@mildlydispleased3221type G is cumbersome and not that much versatile or powerful. I prefer type I (AU/NZ version, with sleeved pins) and J
Due to right angle plugs I really like the idea of all of them being opposite so that the ground are always on the outside edge of the receptacle. I really hate when you can't use two plugs on a duo wall receptacle.
What I'd really like to see are sideways pairs that both have the ground pin down so you could put two right angle plugs in and both would have the cords hanging down.
I just love how all the plugs are different and that if you have an extension chord to fit all kinds, and even diagonally so they won't bug each other, you're still screwed no matter what you do :p
Because, you know, all plugs are different, so some might be bigger, others might be smaller, some might be right angle but oriented diagonally, and so on, and so forth. And that's a problem everywhere, even here in Europe.
Also, pedantic fun fact, where I live we call receptacles a stopcontact, which could mean breaker contact or stop contact and I honestly don't know which, if either, and I really don't want to know because neither makes any sense, but then pedantic people will say that the "proper" name is wall contact box 🤣Which I just find such a gosh darn improvement 🤣 It's not wrong, like how a piano is a hammer trigger machine box. Oh, and the one on an extension chord is a table contact box 🤣I mean, at least then call it a 6/7 floor contact box because about 6 out of 7 times it's NOT on a table! :p And some have a little plastic loop so you can hang them from things, so then it's not on a floor or a table.
But whatever, language is fun, and very often very silly :) Most people around here call it either an extension chord or a plug box. I think plug box is a nice find. It works, it's descriptive (all though it has no plugs until you put one or more in) and would work for wall receptacles as well. So we'll never use the only term that sort of makes half sense for all the things it makes sense for because that would be confusing 🤣
Yep my thoughts exactly. This actually seem to be a winner in this game of pick you flaw.
Yeah, whenever I can only use one of the plugs on a wall receptacle I feel like I was ripped off.
Here I was, seeing the right angle plug being fit into the top socket disalowing any use of the lower socket. Lateral but with inverted pairs of sockets seem like an ideal solution.
I use the ground pin as a guide when I'm trying to plug something in in a tight place or in the dark. This is much easier to do with a finger underneath than a thumb on top, especially when reaching from above like behind a bed.
When I first saw the title of this video it brought me back to the early 2000s when I was working in a hospital for my cousin's company, running low voltage wires. I remember seeing electricians come in and change all the outlets to orient with the ground on top, and I thought it was weird because I wasn't seeing it anywhere else, and I haven't seen it since.
I dropped a small screwdriver into a slightly exposed outlet as a kid. Sparked, melted a bit of the prongs and almost melted through the entire diameter of the screwdriver. I still have the screwdriver to this day as a reminder how dangerous electricity and plugs can be.
@TechnologyConnections The metal ruler thing actually happened to me once. The receptacle was behind a desk and a metal ruler fell into the narrow gap between the desk and the wall, lining the ruler up parallel to the wall so it fell just right, hitting one exposed blade and then likely pivoting to hit the other. I can see such a gap making this much more likely over random knife throwing~
speak for yourself, our family has had knife-throwing competitions ever since AC rural electrification
Never heard of it happening over my entire career as an electrician/contractor. And the fall out more easily with the ground up.
I've always noticed that power strips always have the ground hole up when the cord is oriented in the downward position, which is naturally the way they are normally oriented. I always wondered why. It seemed to be an "upside down" configuration, but why? I think you have finally answered that question for me. Thanks for that! Thumbs up!!!
For me, typically, either the whole receptacle will face up (freestanding), or I will position the bar horizontally (mounted). I also have my UPS standing up (that's the only way it fits), and it only stands up if the receptacles are horizontally positioned. I also have a box where positioning it horizontally puts the ground pin up or down.
Well, "here's another country heard from."
A half-century or so ago (shout out to the 7" reel to reel tape deck!) I worked for about a year as a "non-union) electrician's apprentice.
The contractor who employeed me was obsessive, bordering on compulsive about details. Everything from the "proper" brands of tools and electrical devices to "the RIGHT way" to perform each and every task during the day, from loading supplies and tools on the truck in the morning to cleaning up the work site at the end of the day. Example: This guy did the most precise conduit offset bends for each and every damned junction box ever installed on one of his jobs.
He was an electrician, his father had been a master electrician, and woe betide the crew member who decided something was "close enough."
The point is this. Dave drilled it into my head that there is only one CORRECT way to install a grounded recepticle. That was with the ground DOWN. Now, I don't know if this was at one time a code specification, or had just somehow become the standard custom. But that's the way we set them on OUR jobs.
I'm fascinated by your side note regarding horizontal placement in the Chicago area. I'm from California, and the only time I've ever seen duplex recepticles oriented this way was when space constraints forced such a thing.
The biggest issue with angle plugs is that they can cover other outlets, so you can really only use them on the bottom outlet (unless they really changed the design and standardized it)
That would probably require changing the outlet design to have the receptacles be side by side like with the UK design
Unless you have outlets like my house does. The plugs are rotated 90 degrees from what most outlets have (i.e. the plugs are sideways while the entire outlet is vertical).
The plugs at the 14:55 mark solve that issue well enough
@@mrb692 Yes, I have some extension cords with both two and three-prong variants of these 45-degree angle plugs and I LOVE them. Both safer and more stylish. Also I have some Belkin power strips with right-angle plugs that rotate. I would 110% recommend picking up whatever you can with these styles of plugs, and I have not had clearance issues with them, even plugged into other power strips.
They are fairly uncommon, so unlikely that you would have two needing the same outlet. So, always use the bottom outlet, to leave the top usable for straight cords.
What I hate are large adapters with two prongs. I have an electronic piano with a large adapter and a sound module, also with a large adapter. I can plug the top one upside down and it mostly stays in place. But a power bar on the floor with wide spacing for adapters is the best solution. 😮😮
Odd anecdote regarding the receptacle safety covers for kids. My then 1-year old daughter found one we had removed to plug something in temporarily, and put it in her mouth. It went back into her throat, and cut off her air. She made zero noise and just stood in shock. Gladly I was watching from nearby and ran up, stuck my fingers in and managed to yank it out. Sometimes safety gear has its own hazards; that woke me up.
We had to install the slide-shut receptacle covers because our first kid sought out outlets in use and easily gained access by yanking on the cord of whatever was plugged in.
There was actually a deal with those in the UK where the pin that went in the ground could break off and hold the shutters on the live and neutral open, making the sockets more dangerous rather than less (the UK ones sockets being safe in the first place anyway).
As an electrician, I will always try to install the outlets ground pin up if there’s ever a metal faceplate. I’ve seen metal plates blow up when the little screw gets loose and the plate shorts across L-N
We had a government contract for low income housing that specified ground up. Several months after the job was completed, we were called back to turn them ground side down, because people were complaining that they couldn't plug in their nightlights, air fresheners, and 90 degree plugs because those things aren't designed for use on outlets that are upside-down.
"if you suddenly woke up and found someone had turned all your outlets around in the middle of the night" Ferb I know what we're doing today
Nema 5-15 is a true demonstration of the inertia of convention. We're stuck with a sub par design because it's everywhere.
Yea but it’s also not bad enough to require change. Is it the best? No, but it’s also really not that bad, and I actually prefer it to others like Australia
@@chadkrause6574 But it is bad. It has many flaws and no real benefits. It's just archaic.
And where grounding is not a requirement, we still use NEMA 1-15 plugs.
@@dougbrowning82 True. I'm kind of astonished we still have those plugs. At least they're polarized... usually.
I remember this was a (relatively) big thing around 2015. A new university dormitory even installed all outlets in this "upside down" direction. But I've since noticed that new construction puts them up the traditional way again.
In this video, or another video, you mentioned it seemed like not much of the plug engages with TR outlets. You were spot on with that, and it's mildly concerning to me.
I'm in the process of rewiring a lot of my house (thankfully it's 1 story, and I have a basement and crawlspaces). I took apart two mid grade receptacles I was planning to use, a leviton tcbr1-w, and a legrand TR5262-WCC12. I managed to plug something in with the face plate still attached, and pull the outlet apart to see how much of the plug made contact. It surprised me just how little of the plug engage, especially with the leviton outlet. I repeated this multiple times to make sure there was no error, and there wasn't. Obviously these companies have tested their designs, but still...
installing them sideways on walls isnt common nationwide, but it is common above countertops. at least at the firm i work at, we note on our drawings for outlets above counters to be sideways bcs it just looks so much better
One thing I thought he should mention is the fact that two grounded right-angle plugs are impossible to use on the same outlet. This is why I think duplex receptacles should be installed horizontally (as compared to the current installation), but with the ground pins facing out on either side.
In my experience big right angle plugs for things like portable ac units block the second plug on purpose. The reason being that the one load is close enough to tripping the breaker that they don’t want you adding any more load to that circuit.
@@mh98177 You’re right about overload protection, however, I have some light duty extension cords that do the same thing. Good point though!
why would you not do what we do in the uk and have them side by side and facing so both wires go downwards lmfao
That's why I like the 45° ones he mentioned. Best of both worlds.
This is why they sell foot-long power extension cords, so the plugs don't crowd each other, especially the wall warts (plugs with a power converter)
There is a simple solution to this problem that is common in Europe, that I am surprised is not a thing in the USA. In Europe, type C, E and F sockets take plugs with pins that aren't sleeved either. The solution is to recess or shroud them by the length of the pins minus the usual distance between the face plate and the contacts on the inside. That way, because those plugs have a standardized round flange that fits neatly in the recess, you need to insert the plug past the point where you can no longer touch the pins before contact is made. Since the blades on North-American plugs are quite thin it's a better solution than sleeving the pins.
Although there's probably quite a lot of wall warts and angled plugs out there that won't fit in a recessed plug very well, but it wouldn't be that hard to design some kind of screw-on adapter to make those compatible as well.
@@SnakebitSTI I just thought of that too but I was still editing the comment. Yeah, it's going to be hard to make that work without breaking compatibility with some devices. Not that big a deal in my opinion: what you'd do as a legislator is standardize the design of the plug first, and then change the socket standard, maybe 5 or 10 years later. Any equipment that is incompatible, hasn't been replaced by then and is worth keeping could then be equipped with some kind of permanently attached adapter.
@@SnakebitSTI The entire EU just adopted an entirely new, common light fixture connector, the DCL (Device for Connection of Luminaires), making all existing obsolete.
Radical solution, ditch the 120V "neutral" and go straight to 240V with one of the European connectors (there are a few varieties to choose among, let Alex try them out and make a nation wide decision) as the new standard for all new constructions. Might even go to 50 Hz for extra compatibility, though that's optional.
@@johanmetreus1268 As someone from an EU country, this is the first time I've ever heard about this connector. I can't even find any lamps for sale that use it, at least not explicitly mentioned. I can't even find much information on how and where the connector is suppressed to be used.
As far as I'm aware all our lamps, at least residential ones, are either hard-wired using splicing connectors (for fixed lamps) or use standard wall plugs (for movable lamps).
@@SnakebitSTIyou can just google *Leviton decora 15 amp residential grade 1 gang recessed duplex receptacle outlet* and perhaps with half recessed distance as standard.
@@johanmetreus1268 changing the frequency would have to be done simultaneously across the entire grid, it'd be almost impossible and would break stuff that expects 60hz. Honestly most things people would want to travel with are trivial to build to tolerate either anyway, they just convert it to DC for internal use! Probably because a lot of them were designed by the Japanese, actually, and they managed to screw up their grid badly enough that half the country runs on 50 and half on 60
the fact that one of those specific use cases happened to me... and would probably have been more easily avoided with a right angle plug than an upside down one, because the plug had been dislodged in the first place because teen me thought it was a good idea to shove furniture up next to it.
“Game of throw the knife at the wall” had me rolling 😂
The Chinese outlet is the same as the AU/NZ outlet, but upside-down. They say it’s to prevent fire-causing shorts if something conductive falls between the top two pins, but here in AU/NZ we just have insulation halfway down the plug pins. Which is safer for finger-based reasons too.
Thanks for that info. Plus a reminder to folks that the Standard (240 volt single phase) Australian/New Zealand style outlets, are also used across a substantial amount of South Pacific Islands (largely because the, um, social and business intercourse, with Aust/NZ, being dominant in the region). So The Cook Islands, Fiji, Samoa and Tonga. Plus I would guess Tokelau, Niue and Nauru. Not sure about Kiribati and Tuvalu, but as they were previously The Gilbert and Ellice Islands, they used Australian dollars and were serviced from Australia, then, so likely carried over electric standards also.
Older plugs have all-metal blades. Then you had the time when they changed the standard to require a recessed outlet, but Australian manufacturers couldn’t be arsed changing their products and forced that back out of the standard. Later it got changed again, and now some items such as extension leads and some power boards have the recessed design.
@@boggisthecat Insulated pins came in 2005. The attempt at recessed sockets was initially a failure because of the multitude of things like plugpack transformers which wouldn't fit, although they are now designed for recessed sockets. One would see the shielded part of an extension cord socket cut off in order to fit certain plugs.
@@KiwiCatherineJemma And also PNG which was once an Australian territory. I think Pitcairn Island uses it also.
@@cool386vintagetechnology6
Earlier than that. I used to work for the lab that PDL owned. Pretty sure those were put out around 1998 or so. The standard may have given 2005 as the phase out for unsheathed pins.
Outlet orientation indeed seems like the least of my problems. What really grinds my gears is the complete inability for anyone to make up their minds on the rectangular orientation of power strips versus wall warts, so there's always a 50-50 chance of whether you end up with a combination that doesn't waste up to 3 adjacent receptacles just to insert one item.
Just use pig tails
This! I buy a power strip with outwards facing plugs and I get sideways facing bricks. While there opposite occurs when they’re in a line. Then there’s the power bricks that are simply chunky on all sides and don’t care about your plug config because they’re covering them all regardless
I have a power strip that advertised itself as unblockable. It has its sockets at a 45 degree angle, and then each one is on a segment that can telescope out a bit over an inch in either direction. I have just one massively oversized power brick for a set of PC speakers that manages to hog 2 outlets when used on this thing.
Why do they make power *strips* though? Why aren't power *octopuses* more common?
True whichever country you're in.
@@joemck85 Cheapness is why. Open a power strip and you will find cheap uninsulated buss bars normally. The rotating kind are different sure, but not that much.
My dad always installed the with ground ontop. We always thought he was doing his normal crazy home fix up jobs. He was a master plumber but kind of the do it all guy. This video reminded me of his quirky habits.
I swear this is the best channel on CZcams.
17:09 - just now realising that those safety cover thingies make a TON of sense in the US. Around here in the UK they get referred to as "socket openers" because the act of placing a bendy plastic thing in a wall outlet which already had a MECHANICAL SHUTTER PROTECTING THE LIVE PINS when empty demonstrably makes shocks more likely, not less
Tamper resistant receptacles are now code required to pass inspection, he literally mentions this like 20 seconds later.
@@ericdoesstuff7568my apartment has one receptacle that is tamper-resistant. It's also plug-resistant. It's smack dab in the middle of the apartment in the island so I like to use it for my vacuum, but it's a fight to get the plug in every single time.
I live in a very old rental home (literally built before the USA was the USA, although the electrical was obviously installed later). A number of the outlets don't work at all and, with some others, only the top or bottom works, and I can never remember which one. After several years of always plugging my rice cooker or air popper into the wrong one first, I installed the plastic child safety doo-dads on the non-working ones.
I absolutely love the Breville appliance plugs. They have a hole in them for your finger to easily remove it from the wall, without having to yank on the plug cord or dig your fingernails between it and the wall to pull them out. They are hardily made and, in my opinion, should be the norm. Awesome episode as always, sir.
Except that the Breville cords stick out too far. My toaster oven would have been 3" from the counter edge if I used the socket behind the oven.
Fortunately, the cord was long enough to reach the outlet on the other side of the stove.
A right angle plug with a firm plastic ring (that can freely rotate and hang), problem solved.
I like them because of how they make it easy to put a clamp meter on it.
and that's why in germany we use plug type F or also called Schuko. it can never be touched when it is plugged in and you can also plug it in the other way round.
Thank you for this shocking revelation!
I hope someone starts installing the outlets diagonally so a sequel video can be made here.