Power outlets are topsy turvy - but does it matter?

The answer may surprise you!

Here's that follow-up I talked about at the end

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[Valacosa]

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!

[evilsock]

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.

[Xanthelei]

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.

[erichitchens]

"Do you know how many games of throwing knives at the wall have been ruined thanks to these terrible plugs?" had me dying

[RobBulmahn]

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.

[jeffreyrodman]

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.

[JoshZanders]

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.

[mandrias]

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

[ozziegerff]

The slight gain in safety is not worth the lost sanity of looking at an upside down outlet.

[tkh]

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

[jasonbagwell]

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.

[reathyork]

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.

[Leron...]

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.

[skytek]

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.

[MultiDanak]

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.

[KristinaL]

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.

[skipcallaham]

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.

[Sprchkn]

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.

[VacuumFridge]

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.

[JamesRedekop]

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.