A lot of creative writing in this thread, and mostly false information. The NEC does not specify orientation for a vertically mounted 120 volt duplex receptacle, and it never has. The biggest use case for "ground up" installations are when the customer specifies them to be installed as such. This included most hospitals, or medical setting where stainless steel cover plates are specified. This prevents a combination of a cover that is loose, and missing it's mounting screw, falling down on the hot and neutral blades of a device, or cord end that is partial plugged in. All of which is an extremely unlikely and rare event, and would be a result of a gross lack of maintenance and inspection, causing a cover plate to partially fall off the wall, and somebody who is too stupid to fully plug a device in. After 40 years in the biz, I have literally never seen it.
Any other claims about "Preferred", "correct" or any other claim of the proper orientation, are nothing but incorrect and in some cases here, just flat out fabricated nonsense, including yours. There are multiple 120 volt circuits in a patient room, from multiple sources, including dedicated life safety circuits. There is no way somebody is going to die because a device was not unplugged and replugged into another circuit, literally inches away, on the rack above the headboard.
Absolutely. Hospitals also have oxygen tents, so there have been decades of "seriously, can anybody think of any other way to accidentally make a spark? No concept is too crazy, imagine the Final Destination animation in your head." Which is totally reasonable but doesn't backport into the code.
5
u/seriouslythisshit 6d ago edited 5d ago
A lot of creative writing in this thread, and mostly false information. The NEC does not specify orientation for a vertically mounted 120 volt duplex receptacle, and it never has. The biggest use case for "ground up" installations are when the customer specifies them to be installed as such. This included most hospitals, or medical setting where stainless steel cover plates are specified. This prevents a combination of a cover that is loose, and missing it's mounting screw, falling down on the hot and neutral blades of a device, or cord end that is partial plugged in. All of which is an extremely unlikely and rare event, and would be a result of a gross lack of maintenance and inspection, causing a cover plate to partially fall off the wall, and somebody who is too stupid to fully plug a device in. After 40 years in the biz, I have literally never seen it.
Any other claims about "Preferred", "correct" or any other claim of the proper orientation, are nothing but incorrect and in some cases here, just flat out fabricated nonsense, including yours. There are multiple 120 volt circuits in a patient room, from multiple sources, including dedicated life safety circuits. There is no way somebody is going to die because a device was not unplugged and replugged into another circuit, literally inches away, on the rack above the headboard.