Wow, that bit plugging it in a little and the light coming on is scary! What a terrible design - ours in Australia were a bit less susceptible to that already, the pins being at an angle to each other, but they fixed the potential problem (of maybe like sliding a knife or screwdriver in) anyway like a decade ago, changing the standard to insulate the pins half way for any new plugs.

An interesting thing about our plugs is that they’re usually ground pin down, but China used basically the same design but put them upside down, so if you buy something direct from China that comes with a right-angle plug, the wire usually comes out the “wrong” way!

“Nobody cares”

Irate, mostly because, if code doesn’t require it, it’s opinion. But once you gave the “nobody cares” disclaimer, you got a pass, at least from me.

Irritating electricians and all those CEE 7 [1] users 😀

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CEE_7_standard_AC_plugs_and_sockets

I'm sure this is covered in the video, but my favorite thing about the whole debate is how it really doesn't matter if you install the receptacles ground up or down because so many plugs don't come with a ground pin.

Space heater pulling 1500W? Go ahead and just use hot and neutral, who needs ground? 🤡

@miah It's hard to say, but my position is that the main thing we need to solve is the plugs-backing-out problem, and right-angle plugs are a better hedge against that imo as they help regardless of whether the ground pin is present.

Sleeving the blades, too, if we can make that work would be good.

My main beef with the ground-up "solution" is that it's only sometimes a solution and doesn't actually address the biggest problems.

Electrician from Denmark here.
The orientation of the plug is not something the code specify over here. That’s something the manufacturer has to specify in their datasheet of the product. If it isn’t mentioned, it doesn’t matter and you are free to do as needed.
Also our receptacle is recessed to further idiot proof the setup, along with plastic on the prongs. Oh and RCDs.

EDIT: not all prongs have plastic. Actually mostly on 2 prongs.

I absolutely lost my shit at the “throw the knives at the wall” section. Laughed so hard I cried, and it’s been a while since anything on YouTube had that effect on me.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a cutlery drawer that needs emptying.

Content warning: longish (~1400 characters) Reveal/hide

Ha! The electrician that rewired my entire house 25 years ago put the ground pin up *everywhere* and said that it was for safety, and cited the "foreign object falling on the pin" as the reason.

He was the best, fastest, most knowledgeable, and hardest working electrician I've ever seen (multiple other subcontractors told me the same) so it's now gospel to me.

I’m an English major, but my spouse is an electrician and a PE. I’ll have to show him this.

What bugs me most about plugs is trying to fit different ones into an outlet when the plastic casing is blocking BOTH receptacles. Outlet strips are a particular chore—you have to carefully plan which device uses which receptacle.

Anyway, great video (any complaints from Bostonians??)

The real achievement would be to annoy a superset of electricians.

I guess that would be every electrician in the world, and also possibly some other people.

So out of a fun coincidence I happened to get an old Montgomery Ward Radial Arm saw from my grandfather, including the original manual, weirdly enough.

Inside is this picture, which is relevant and makes you wonder.

it's weird to see this as in the EU we have Type C for ungrounded and both Type F and Type E for grounded, the last one is usually installed with the ground pin up which I have never seen shielded and comes out of the socket.

both Type C and F never care about orientation unless a type E socket is used in which case the ground pin would always fit on the top.

additionally pins on Type C are always insulated; but for Types E and F the socket itself should be recessed far enough that contact should not be possible when the pins are accessible (although older construction is not always up to code with this; but then we also have Type C sockets that accept E and F even though there is no grounding).
nowadays in new construction the grounded Type F (or E depending on country) is required and Type C sockets (not the plugs) are illegal to build.

PS: I used the types from this site documenting the plug standards around the world: https://www.worldstandards.eu/electricity/plugs-and-sockets/

Plug & socket types

^{WorldStandards.eu}

A question I had while watching the video was why there don't seem to be any options for horizontally oriented type A/B outlets like the ones I've mocked up below?

I live in a type G country where this orientation and right angle plugs are standard so please correct me if I'm mistaken and you can actually buy type A/B outlets like this.

After watching this episode, I think Chicago is almost there.

Introducing the Chicago Style Right Angle Decora Plug