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I haven't noticed these over the years I've owned my home. Only recently I happened to look down and think "huh, that's odd, why are those outlets colored bright orange." I have, over the years, realized that color around electrical components matters.

enter image description here

So I Googled a bit about orange outlets but in most applications it seems to be used in hospitals. I've also found articles about it being a hospital-grade isolated ground outlet, but from a home owner's perspective, I have no idea why this is helpful. At the same time, the original homeowner clearly thought this would be a useful feature. So I'm just trying to figure out why.

Per request in the comments, I've added an image of the breaker panel open: Breaker panel open Breaker panel without zoom

(without the zoom of the above picture)

Note: Ignore the yellow stickers / red arrows. This image is from my initial home inspection which was pointing out some issues with oversized breakers. Those issues are resolved and I assume they don't affect these outlets. Sorry about the image quality, the original image was not very high res.

Inside the outlet box:

I apologize, but this is as close to disassembling the outlet as I'm comfortable with. I understand if your first impression is "those pictures are worthless", but I figured I'd post them in the event that they help in any way.

Overview of Outlet Box Overall view of the outlet with the box opened.

Top of Outlet Box Close up of the top of the outlet box.

Bottom of Outlet Box Close up of the bottom of the outlet box.

William
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5 Answers5

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That recep appears to be right next to your service panel, connected to the panel by a 1" conduit nipple.

That makes it the "magic electrician's outlet".

It's not required by Code. It's just a "common practice" for an electrician to fit such an outlet, and place it on a dedicated circuit breaker. This costs about $10 normally ($5 for the breaker, $1 for the nipple, $1 for the Handy Box, and $3 for a quality recfep and cover). This is generally the first breaker installed in the panel. The electrician then runs extension cords off it to power tools and lights while wiring the rest of the house. Alternately, the electrician can power down the whole house (except that one circuit) and do the needed tasks.

Since it is dog simple, only the two THHN wires to the recep (ground is via the steel conduit itself), it's very easy for the electrician to visually inspect that it cannot possibly be interacting with any other circuit in the house. So the electrician can be confident that the entire house is powered down.

I'm not sure why your electrician would use an orange one. I would look closely at how it is grounded to the ground screw on the receptacle. Perhaps the electrician wired it intentionally groundless for some reason, in which case I would hope and expect to see it fed from a GFCI breaker.

Once, a person complained that they were having breaker trips trying to power a gaming PC, laser printer, and (not surprisingly) air conditioner in their home office on a single 15A breaker. They simply needed another circuit run. How far is the service panel? "It's actually in this room. Here's a pic." Et voilà, there was the Magic Electrician's Outlet, and on a 20A breaker no less. Problem solved!

Harper - Reinstate Monica
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The orange colored outlets are installed for an isolated ground. They are electrically the same as regular outlets, except they're built better and the yoke of the outlet is not tied to the grounding screw of the outlet. I've only seen them used with metal conduit and the circuit has its own dedicated insulated ground which goes back to the original ground connection and usually has its own buss bar. The previous owner might have installed it for some sensitive battery backup systems, who knows. No need to replace it as it will do the job fine. I'd verify that the outlet is, in fact grounded with its own ground wire as the yoke to box will not ground it, which shouldn't be done anyway.

Samuel
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JACK
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Unlike the usual white / ivory / brown receptacles, an orange receptacle isn't just colored differently, it's constructed differently and is electrically different. It's intended to reduce noise on the grounded metal components of the system from reaching sensitive equipment plugged into that receptacle. It's required by code in health care facilities and used to be popular for IT equipment. It's sometimes used with audio / sound equipment. The way the isolated ground is wired, it really wouldn't do much this close to your panel.

I wouldn't make any assumptions about why the previous owner used this. They might have just picked it for the color. They might have wanted the color to signal there's something different about this receptacle, or for no reason at all. They may or may not have wired it correctly.

I'd replace it with a regular receptacle, and verify that the wiring is normal and correct.

batsplatsterson
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At the public schools, orange outlets are energized when the school is running on generator and the grid is down.

Sparkplug Mark
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Orange receptacles have grounds that are isolated from the standard ground and conduit. On a standard receptacle the ground and conduit can be a ground loop and act as an antenna for EMF from other electrical or extraneous sources. It's usually more effective on longer runs (longer antennas).

Gerald Cliver
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