electricalreceptacle
I am replacing my outlets with tamper resistant outlets. After replacement, some of them are crooked in their boxes.
The old outlets were straight enough so I know the boxes are aligned appropriately. I have tried to remove them and get them in more straight, but I haven't had much success.
Any tips on how to best make sure the outlets are flush with the box/plate/wall?
One option is to use a single gang mud ring for double gang box.
you can get metal or plastic ones.
I think this depends on the quality of your old outlets. A lot of times builders might use the lowest quality for outlets and I have gone through houses that were 10-15 years old and just spent a day replacing them all.
However with GFCIs it is not very common for these to be cheaply made. They would have to probably be quite a bit older than 10 years old to be junk GFCIs. So I would keep them unless another GFCI in the same room fails. I like my outlets to generally match if they are right next to each other but that is just aesthetic preference.
Really though if you are talking about electricity in general (save for very old knob and tub or aluminum) if you touch it there is much more chance of you causing an issue than you preventing one.
Best Answer
I would hazard a guess that the boxes are not aligned perfectly. This isn't uncommon, and often the metal flanges of the outlet will need to be slightly, deliberately twisted to get the face of the outlet to match the plane of the plate (which will pretty much always conform to the wall). Another factor, as mentioned by @Tyson, is the force of the wires behind the outlet pushing it out of alignment. This can particularly be a problem with 12 guage wire and bulky GFCI outlets.
In extreme cases of vertical box misalignment, you may need to not clamp the outlet flange tight against the box (either leaving it slightly floating, or shim with washers) but in this case it looks like most of the misalignment is horizontal, and can be remedied with a little twisting (but you could maybe back out that top screw a turn or so).
It's also possible to snap off the "ears" on the flanges if any of them are impeding alignment, but it's hard to tell if this is the case from the pictures. Alternately you may need to gouge out a little more plaster under the ears on one side.