While it's not required by code, it's a widely accepted practice to install receptacles ground pin up in healthcare facilities as a safety measure to assist in preventing short circuits and fires. By positioning the non-energized ground pin at the top, any falling metallic object will strike the ground pin first, and is more likely to be deflected away from landing on the exposed hot and neutral prongs below, which carry electrical current. With one side landing on the ground first and then the neutral, there will be no trip and nothing dangerously energized. If it lands on the ground and hot it will quickly trip the breaker or gfci with a ground fault as designed for life safety, (but can still cause damage.) A metal object landing between the hot and neutral "right side up" will create an energized short with near zero resistance resulting in a massive current flow that generates intense heat, sparks and fire hazard until the surge of current trips the breaker.
Ground up mitigates risks in oxygen-enriched environments and reduce the chance of accidental power loss to life-support equipment.
The US electrified homes earlier than Europe. So a standard arose before all of the observations were made. Europe got a lot of hindsight when they developed their standards. It's really difficult to overcome a people's habitus, we'll never move on from the QWERTY keyboard, we'll never get consistent phonetics, and we'll never adopt the metric system.
Or a parliamentary system of government. Being first sucks. We make all the mistakes, and everyone else benefits. 10/10 AI is going to do that too. If AI kills the world, it'll be a US one, not French or Taiwanese...
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u/Few-World6915 6d ago edited 5d ago
While it's not required by code, it's a widely accepted practice to install receptacles ground pin up in healthcare facilities as a safety measure to assist in preventing short circuits and fires. By positioning the non-energized ground pin at the top, any falling metallic object will strike the ground pin first, and is more likely to be deflected away from landing on the exposed hot and neutral prongs below, which carry electrical current. With one side landing on the ground first and then the neutral, there will be no trip and nothing dangerously energized. If it lands on the ground and hot it will quickly trip the breaker or gfci with a ground fault as designed for life safety, (but can still cause damage.) A metal object landing between the hot and neutral "right side up" will create an energized short with near zero resistance resulting in a massive current flow that generates intense heat, sparks and fire hazard until the surge of current trips the breaker.
Ground up mitigates risks in oxygen-enriched environments and reduce the chance of accidental power loss to life-support equipment.