I was at a friend's house today, and he was complaining about some stuff that was plugged in to a power strip not seeming to work right. The devices had non-grounded plugs, and on inspection, he actually had them plugged in across two plugs in the power strip, because the spacing between adjacent sockets is the same as the distance between the socket prongs.

I can half-way understand why it might have worked briefly, but... was that shit dangerous? Should he throw that power strip away?

11/2/2016 12:50:43 AM

I've never seen a power strip where that was possible, but it should be fine so long as the plugs are orientated the same way. If you take the power strip apart, all the plugs are sharing the same neutral and same hot.

11/2/2016 1:28:40 AM

Yes, all the plugs are sharing the same neutral and hot, so if the device works then it is getting one neutral and one hot from somewhere. But, some devices use the Neutral wire as a ground wire...which can be quite unsafe if the neutral and hot are swapped.

11/2/2016 12:49:56 PM

Quote :

"Should he throw that power strip away?"

He shouldn't need to, I would check to make sure all of the outlets on the power strip work though.

11/2/2016 8:15:32 PM

How old is the power strip? I usually replace all mine that I plug anything expensive into at 3 years or so, or immediately after it trips once (which has been quite rare in my experience).

11/7/2016 10:30:30 AM