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Posted to alt.home.repair
John
 
Posts: n/a
Default Why won't this light turn on?

Tony Hwang wrote:
John wrote:

I have a ceiling light in the hallway with two light switches
(dipoles?). The ceiling light has 4 bulbs. The other day the hallway
light wouldn't turn on with known good bulbs.

Not knowing anything about electricity I *assumed* that one of the
switches had to be defective so I replaced both on/off switches --
that didn't solve the problem.

There's electricity in both boxes to other lamps so I know (think)
that it's not a circuit breaker problem.

Before proceeding any further (e.g. replace the lamp fixture), I
bought a simple current tester to see if there's any electricity in
either of the light switches.

Not knowing what/how to test, I put the test probes on each of the
wires for both switches in every conceivable configuration. The diode
never glowed.

Beside laying out a few hundred dollars for an electrician to deign
making his royal appearance, what can I do first to resolve this problem?


Hi,
Brave man, sounds like you replaced switches without even bothering
turning off the breaker at the panel? You should've checked breaker for
the light fixture before anything else.


Brave I am not. I turned off one breaker at a time until the other lights in
the same box turned off before swapping out the switch. I didn't trust the
labels at the breakers.