Folks,

In searching the Internet, all electrical outlet discussions assume a vertical installation (ground up/ground down). My house (not in the US) has all the outlets oriented horizontally (ground to the right). This causes no end of headaches with manufactured products that obviously were designed for vertical installations (my battery chargers, cordless shaver charger, night lights, electrically heated pest control strips, etc. not to mention molded plugs with cords now twisted at 90 degrees).

Is there anything written that even suggests that outlets are mounted vertically or are all the manufacturers of plugs in the world just making an assumption? Anyone know of any written convention on this matter?

Thanks,

David A. Bandel

I'm not aware of any convention on this. In the US you see horizontally-mounted outlets all the time - that's how almost all the outlets in my house are oriented. When buying things like extension cords and power strips that have a low profile plug (so that the cord comes out the side) I pay close attention to how the plug is arranged on the cord to make sure it doesn't come out the wrong way.

As for upside down - the outlets in the offices of my old employer were all mounted upside down, with the ground prong above the hot and neutral. They claimed this was safer than the ground prong at the bottom. Because if the plug was not fully seated and you dropped a thin metallic object (like a bobby pin) having the hot and neutral on top could allow the bobby pin to land across the two prongs and cause a short. Putting the ground prong on top eliminates that possibility.

I've seen manufactured plugs in every orientation...
"where" you put them is the more regulated issue.

Always check the instructions that come with receptacles.

National Electric Code once did require the ground prong to be mounted up, as Ebaines, stated, in the event a metal object fell onto a bare blades of a plug not fully inserted in the receptacle, this one mandatory in medical facilities only.

NEC no longer requires this, however, NEMA has manufactures of receptacles state in their instructions that the ground prong be mounted up.

With the poster not from USA< I suggest that David check with his local codes, as NEC and NEMA do not apply out of the USA.

I've always wondered about it myself. I feel like ground-up is safer for the reasons stated. When I was young I plugged a large fan into a receptacle with the ground down; the metal faceplate was not screwed in, and fell across the plug, causing a nasty short, scared me to death.
Interestingly, most residential houses I've been in have the ground down, but I've seen appliance plugs favoring either orientation.

I have seen GFI Recepticles that were 90 degrees from normal in its device, but not a normal? Outlet.
I thought the ground up was a bad Idea?
Like Kyle says if something drops, it shorts and Scares you.
If Outdoors, the cover stops something from dropping from above, Worse I feel is lifting a piece of metal(drip edge)up, and touching a hot, in this situation, you are holding, with a shock, you would hold tighter?
Hopefully it is a GFI, and you would be protected.