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[Tim A Perry]

In the past I posted some of the awful stuff I run in to. I was pleased to find this in the ballroom where I will be doing a light show on NYE.

[Andrew Broughton]

Upside down edisons and no cams? Boo.

[Tony "T" Tissot]

Looks like six 15 amp circuits.

I share your joy.

Seriously.

[Milt Hathaway]

Andrew Broughton wrote on Mon, 13 December 2010 01:46

Upside down edisons...

Apparently that's the by-the-code way now.

Looking at the size of the connectors between boxes, I'll bet they only ran one neutral wire through that entire run of boxes. If I'm imagining correctly, they've got a minimum of 8 wires pulled through that first connector. Nice trick.

[Jay Barracato]

The logic that was explained to me the first time I saw a contractor doing that was that if a paper clip or something was dropped on a partially inserted plug, it would hit the ground first and slide off, instead of potentially shorting the hot/neutral.

[frank kayser]

I don't know about you, but I've yet to find an angled plug on a refrigerator that did not point up in a normally oriented receptacle (ground down)

Jay's explanation sounds reasonable to me...

frank

[Eric Simna]

Jay Barracato wrote on Mon, 13 December 2010 07:33

The logic that was explained to me the first time I saw a contractor doing that was that if a paper clip or something was dropped on a partially inserted plug, it would hit the ground first and slide off, instead of potentially shorting the hot/neutral.

I can tell you, that from experience, ground UP is a great idea. When I was younger, and stupid, and my step father claimed to know more than he actually did, he built a bedroom in the attic, electrical included.  Well, he used metal cover plates, but forgot the screws to hold them in place.  Well one day I unplugged our space heater and the plate fell.  Shorting H-N.  It was impressive watching the lights dim to nearly nothing. No breakers tripped either.  

My mother promptly went out and bought plastic covers.

That might have been the day I became really interested in electrical work.  Partially to keep my stepfather from ever doing it again.

[Greg Cameron]

Jay Barracato wrote on Mon, 13 December 2010 04:33

The logic that was explained to me the first time I saw a contractor doing that was that if a paper clip or something was dropped on a partially inserted plug, it would hit the ground first and slide off, instead of potentially shorting the hot/neutral.

I've actually witnessed this a couple of times. Once it was an unwound guitar string that
had been placed on a guitar amp. It fell off and landed right inside the gap between the amp's plug and the wall outlet. Nice short. The other time was a metal dongle tag for a USB license dongle for an Avid "Media Composer" video editing system. Avid, in their wisdom, decided to make the tags metal. The tag was hanging off of a USB hub sitting on top of a Mac G4 computer. It got jostled and the tag slide off the top of the hub on right into the gap between a power plug and the outlet. Almost started a fire as the short wasn't enough to trip the breaker right away. But it was enough to heat up the tag nice and hot to melt the plug and the wall plate. I guess I wasn't the only one who saw problems with this as Avid changed their dongle tags to plastic at some point.

Greg

[Rick Stansby]

Jay Barracato wrote on Mon, 13 December 2010 04:33

The logic that was explained to me the first time I saw a contractor doing that was that if a paper clip or something was dropped on a partially inserted plug, it would hit the ground first and slide off, instead of potentially shorting the hot/neutral.

"upside down" edison plugs used to be a pet peeve of mine, but then someone explained what you have just explained, and now I prefer them "upside down".

[John Roberts {JR}]

OTOH during a flood the rising water would hit a ground lug down terminal first and harmlessly ground the water... While I concede this is a slender benefit.

JR