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From: zonker@ghoti.lcs.mit.edu (Regis M Donovan)
Newsgroups: misc.consumers.house,sci.electronics
Subject: Re: Question about electrical outlets
Message-ID: <1990Aug30.192752.23339@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>
Date: 30 Aug 90 19:27:52 GMT
References: <842@ecicrl.UUCP> <1990Aug30.012428.14541@mthvax.cs.miami.edu> <1990Aug30.165822.19356@amd.com>
Sender: daemon@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu (Lucifer Maleficius)
Organization: Donovan Electrical Service, Co.
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There is no "correct" orientation for electrical outlets...

I have seen this discussed in all sorts of electrical publications... (an 
article in EC&M a while back comes to mind...)

There are some people who prefer to have them mounted ground-up, especially
where there is equipment with supply cords that fit better when ground-up.
Some people like them installed ground up so that the receptacle face on a 
standard duplex receptacle doesn't look like a little "face" watching them
(with the ground as the mouth and the slots as eyes...  (NO!  REALLY!
Some people think this way...)).  Other people prefer to have them
mounted ground up  so that an object dropped across the plug will short
out against ground or not-short against the neutral.

Most people are more accustomed to the ground-down configuration, but 
there are a number of GFIs on the market that have printing on the 
test-reset buttons such that for the printing to be right side up, the
receptacle is mounted in the ground-up position...

The only time when orientation of the receptacle is really important is
when it is mounted horizontally, it should be mounted neutral-up,
so that any conductive foriegn object falling across the prong will not
short out or spark across the hot leg...

--regis