hospital grade or commercial grade receptacles ?


What is the difference ? Is it really worth ten times the price to get hospital grade receptacles ? Why ?
Is one brand really superior to another? Is Pass &
Seymore a good brand ? Hubble better ?
I am setting up a closet to house my mid-fi gear and
will be running two dedicated 20A. lines to run the
2-channel audio and the home entertainment equipment. I
will have two double (2 duplex receptacles) on each 20A
circuit.
Thank you in advance.
saki70

Showing 1 response by shasta

Hospital Grade recept's have nylon faceplates for durability. They have increased plug pullout specs per UL standards - they grip like a heart attack.

Spec Grade, Commercial Grade are ad words with no standards to compare them. However, they are *all* much better than the trash "contractor" or "builder", sub $1.00, items sold unboxed at the home center. They have screw connectors instead of the trash stab-in connections. I've replaced all my switches and receptacles w/ Leviton Spec grade (FIM's on the A/V outlets). The remaining 50% of the equation is to torque the connections per mfgr. specification -- NEC and UL required. It's impossible to guess at this. And to clean the receptacle terminals prior, since they're dirty right out of the box.