Comment by ssl-3
6 hours ago
AFAIK, hospital-grade outlets differ mostly by having an isolated ground. The ground terminals and the mounting points do not share a conductive path, which is sometimes useful in some nuanced ways in hospital environments.
Spec grade tends to go the other direction with that: A lot of these are self-grounding. What that means is that there's a deliberate conductive path between the ground terminals and the mounting points. When properly fastened to a grounded metal box, it can become unnecessary to use the ground screw on the back of the outlet.
Both grip things that are plugged in about the same, in my experience. It seems likely that they share many of the same components inside.
And yeah: Cheap outlets (including "contractor grade") are junk. They take longer to install, they loosen up over time, and they do everything worse. If an house has 50 cheap outlets instead of 50 decent outlets, then someone saved $75 on materials -- but probably paid more than that in additional labor hours. They're reprehensibly stupid.
Ah yeah I forgot about the brass strap ground to box being separate from the pigtail ground terminal to provide redundant grounds, it’s been a while since I estimated any hospital work!
I should know better, HCF cable has redundant grounds for the same reason. NEC 517.13, just got my 2026 code book today!
Thanks for clarifying that hospital and spec grade receptacle contacts hold about as well, I wasn’t 100% sure on that. You’re probably right about the hospital grade and spec grade sharing components, I wouldn’t be surprised if say a hospital grade 20A receptacle had the same exact power contacts as a heavy duty 20A spec grade receptacle.
Are you (or were you) a JW electrician? I’m just an office guy, I learn from the field :)