I remember a house I had in Colorado over 20 years ago. The sadistic character who built it put metal switch plates on all the light switches. Carpeted floors + low humidity in the winter + shuffling feet when walking = taking your life in your hands turning lights on or off. Plastic for me, thank you very much!
Ghery Pettit From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Dave Osborn Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2005 10:41 AM To: Robert A. Macy Cc: [email protected]; Stone, Richard Subject: Re: home outlet wiring Hello Robert, Fat fingers not withstanding, ground up is considered safer and is a code requirement when metal faceplates are used. Consider what happens if the faceplate screw is loose and the metal faceplate slides down toward the pins and the hot pins are up. You would much prefer the faceplate to contact the ground conductor. As for the red wire, it is also commonly used as the alternate hot conductor with 3-way switches. Best regards, Dave Osborn PM-CMS Philips Medical Systems PMS-158 3178 +1 978 659 3178 fax +1 978 685 5624 [email protected] To "Stone, Richard" <[email protected]> "Robert A. Macy" cc <[email protected] [email protected] > Subject Re: home outlet wiring Sent by: Classification [email protected] 12/01/2005 12:51 PM It is my understanding that the RED wire is usually reserved for the opposite phase of 110Vac of the black wire. For wiring 220V outlets, etc. I've never seen red used as a neutral except in "home" wiring. To bring back to more onto safety topic: I've only seen 1/2 a single outlet wired to a wall switch in residential rooms. That outlet, to differentiate it >from all the normally powered outlets, is mounted upside down. That is, with the ground at the top. My comment is: Great, makes it easy to find which outlet it is, but isn't it dangerous since your fingers can slip down around the plug and pick up HOT wires instead of the GROUND wire? Yes, I know fat fingers, but still if you've done it once, It's enough to convince you of the wisdom of having the GROUND pin at the bottom. - Robert - On Thu, 1 Dec 2005 11:39:39 -0500 "Stone, Richard" <[email protected]> wrote: > hello group, > > Regarding typical USA outlets on the walls, I have seen > an outlet that has: > 1. frame ground > 2. white wire-neutral > 3. red wire-? > 4. black wire-hot > > what is the purpose of the red wire? > on the outlet in question, the red and white wires are > jumpered in the back of the outlet. > > in the room, the wall switch turns off both top and > bottom outlets, normally a wall switch only > affects either the top OR bottom outlet,not both. Also > all 4 outlets in the room are controlled by the one > switch > is the red wire some time of connection between outlets > only and not fed back to the breaker box? that's my > thought. > any ideas on this? > > thanks > Richard, > - This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to [email protected] Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas [email protected] Mike Cantwell [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher: [email protected] David Heald: [email protected] All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc - This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to [email protected] Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas [email protected] Mike Cantwell [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher: [email protected] David Heald: [email protected] All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc - This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to [email protected] Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas [email protected] Mike Cantwell [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher: [email protected] David Heald: [email protected] All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc
