Home Lighting Mystery: any electricians on this board?

trilinearmipmap · #1 09-07-2006, 04:54 AM

Today one of the light fixtures in our home went out. It is a 3-bulb ceiling fixture, all the bulbs went out.

I replaced the bulbs with new bulbs, they don't work. I made sure the new bulbs worked in another fixture. I tried both the screw-in cf bulbs and the old-fashioned 60 watt incandescent bulbs.

I checked the circuit breaker, everything looks normal. None of the other lights or electric outlets in the house are affected, the lights and electric outlet immediately adjacent to this fixture work normally.

The light fixture is switched by a two-switch system, ie. you can use the switch downstairs to turn it on or off, and another switch upstairs will turn it on or off.

I can only assume the somewhere (at one of the switches, or at the light fixture) a wire has come loose. As a precaution I took out all the light bulbs to prevent an electric fire in case there is electrical arcing at the failed connection.

My plan was to call an electrician tomorrow, does anyone have any ideas about this?

JimE · #2 09-07-2006, 12:52 PM

Under the light fixture there's a junction box where the wires from the light and the house wires join together using marrettes (twist wire nuts). Pretty common to get a bad connection there as its wimpy stranded light wire trying to wrap around and connect to beefy solid house wire. First place I'd check.

medican · #3 09-07-2006, 02:26 PM

Same damn thing happened to me.......light was out for more than a year.....LMAO

Thats what it was bad conection in the box above the light

Good luck
Make sure the power is off........

trilinearmipmap · #4 09-07-2006, 04:13 PM

OK Thanks.

The light is now working, went back on on its own, sounds like an intermittent bad connection, if I electrocute myself my wife will have a 120 gallon reef for sale.

Midknight · #5 09-07-2006, 04:23 PM

Hey, don't worry. Being electrocuted doesn't hurt... that much.
I used to do it on a regular basis and there is nothing wrong with me. (no matter what people say)

beaker020 · #6 09-10-2006, 06:43 AM

Now that it is working It is easy to find the right breaker to turn it off so you wont get electrocuted. If you have a loose connection it could cause a fire. Trip the breaker and pull down the fixture and check the marretts. Do the same for the light switches.

Also make sure that the light switches cannot be switched only part way. One light at my parents house would do that. If you didnt flip one switch all the way the light would go off but the other switch could not be used to turn it on again.