Power outlets are topsy turvy - but does it matter? 

Yes

😮

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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!

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

🚓🚓🚓

The bubbling Christmas night light just won't work upside down

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.

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.

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'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.

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.

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

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 RU-vid creator beef. I hope we can see the escalation increase in a subtle but definite "Those who know, know" kinda way.

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.

Another corner case thing: machine shops. Sheet metal and tools and oh-my, there's a reason all of our outlets are installed ground-up. Maybe it's a little paranoid, but you'd be surprised how often a thing of sheet metal gets leaned against the wall or on a workbench only to get knocked over just to get caught on an in-use receptacle. I once found an alum cutoff squarely caught on the ground prong, long enough to gather some grinding dust up top. Right in front of my OSHA handbook, no less (joke)!

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.

A proud Boston tradition

​@@conqu2I'm not sure if I got the joke

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.

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.

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

I do like how one gets to yell "Criss de Tabernak!" when the knife gets lodged.

@@davidjames4915 Calice ! mdr

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.

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.

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

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.

They are designned by Murphey

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.

Imagine how someone from the the UK, but in the USA feels about it

As someone is the US, I've always been amazed at how huge your's are.

@@currentsitguythat’s what she said

Pfft, you are just jealous ours look like cute little shocked faces.

@@personaslates They should be looking shocked, because in the last moment before they became inanimate, they got a brief look at the American plug standards...

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.

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.

"Many landlords seem to prefer 37.2°" - is there any tolerance in that figure?

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)

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).

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.

@@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

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).

Ditto. Especially since I'm in the UK where this just isn't an issue.

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.

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.

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.

@@Jehty21 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)

@@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

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.

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?

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.

Yeah, until you have to have to decide where ground is on a C plug and then you have too many standards to count. E, F, H, J, K, L, and N all work with the C plug, but all have their own ground connections. Thankfully E and F are interoperable, but its pretty clunky in its design.

@@gljames24 Yeah, sure. But europe isn't entire country, and in one of them, you would have at most 2 types of plugs, per country, and in reality most of europe (GB isn't europe) uses C,E,F and mostly E sockets, so you can put there whatever you want. You don't decide where is ground on C plug, since there is no any. Also ground is not on the plug, but on outlet so if it has it, then nice, if not, well whatever. Nobody thinks about these standards, nobody care, you just plug it in and doesn't have to be afraid of burning your house like box of matches

As a UK resident, I'm not a fan of European sockets. They often suffer from exactly the same issues as the US ones - far too easy for them to fall out. The UK hasn't got much right lately, but plug and socket design is fantastic

​@@richjhartnot sure how youve come to think that. While they do wear out over the years, a type f plug usually takes considerable force to get out. Maybe you're talking about the type C ones? For that I could maybe see it

​@@richjhartI've never had a plug fall out or even become loose here in Germany. What are you talking about?

I would've flipped them over myself, but I understand that not everyone is comfortable with doing that

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.

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.

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.

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. 😮😮

A listed receptacle will not let this easily happen. Ground prong contacts in a receptacle are closer to the face of the recept, and the ground prong is longer, too, so, regardless of orientation, it will break contact last. Yes, I know, people are banned for these discussions over at ET or Mike Holt's forums.

I don't think I believe that is true though. Considering how much longer the ground prong is, I don't think there is any orientation that would result in the ground being first to fall out in the event of an accident.

Think about it for a second. How do you get shocked. You need a complete path. That means voltage must have some place to go. With no ground path, no shock. You can literally put a finger on a live circuit and feel nothing other than a slight tingle, unless you are somehow grounded. Which is exactly the same as being grounded and touching a hot. Must have a path. Having a grounded outlet where the ground prong increases the likelihood of remaining connected only increases the likelihood of getting actually shocked by accident as you become the connecting conduit.

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.

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.

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.

I had to flip some at my Dad's house for timers that would have been upside down with the ground on the top. To me, it always looks wrong unless the ground is on the bottom. Like this: 😮 😮

Your replication of his little funny in the video didn't go unnoticed by me. Well done.

Ground up generally allows the plug to tork out of the socket.

E dificilmente ele desencaixa da parede por ter aquela parte onde o plugue em si vai até o fim.

The Brazil type is based on a International Electrotechnical Commission standard IEC 60906-1 that should've adopted aroud the world but we know that is hard to do, only Brazil and South Africa adopted the standard, until now

​@@AndersondaRosaSLi find it so weird that Switzerland adopted a system so similar but incompatible. It's a nice system though, with 10 and 16 amp single and three phase plugs and sockets and backwards compatibility

I have a question about Brasil: how do you distinguish 127 and 220 V sockets? They are the same and you have to check in which area you are or you risk blowing your appliances?

​​@@elia_bertiI've been to Brazil. They don't distinguish

Anyone can find a corner case and say "but what IF...", but usually if there's a use-case that has shown an elevated risk, the NEC or OSHA will directly address it. Industrial and jobsite electrical fires most frequently involve damaged cord-and-plug sets and defective tools.

I've actually seen this happen before. The most common way of cleaning off machines is with an air gun, and chips will fly onto the floor and then later swept up. Someone at my work did trip a breaker from this.

@@hank4239 main reason machine shop at my university had IEC connectors on everything.

In that scenario wouldn't it make more sense to have some sort of covering to prevent stuff falling in?

@@MorbidEel some companies make those now, however they're not required and unless it happens no one is going to even think about that. What we did at my work was buy extension cords with those little tabs that you can put a screw through so you just screw it in after plugging it in