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

Rich256 wrote:

John wrote:

wrote:

"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. "

Are you an auto mechanic by trade? From your above decribed behavior,
I'd say so.



Auto mechanic? Bummer. No, a software engineer.


Have you checked to see if any of your breakers have tripped? Include
any GFCI's in the house as well. You never know how many stupid things
someone before you may have done so, putting an inside light fixture on
a circuit after a bathroom or garage GFCI is certainly possible.



I first checked all the breakers and GFCIs. They're fine. When I turn
a breaker on/off, it affects all the other lights in the box.
Curiously, the switches are on two different breakers. Before starting
to replace the second light switch, I was fortunate to accidentally
flip another switch in the box and to my shock, the light turned on.
I found the other breaker and turned it off.

How do I use the tester to verify that there's power coming into the
light switches? If it was a single switch, I wouldn't be asking such
a lame question.




Did you look at the site referenced by Speedy Jim?

http://www.wfu.edu/~matthews/courses/p230/switches.html


I'm looking at it now. I don't quite understand it yet. It'll take a bit of
time to sink in.


What you have is the three way switch configuration. Did you replace
the switched with the proper type (Three way)?


Yes, I bought identical replacements and when I replaced the wires, I swapped
them in the identical configuration.


The four lamps are in parallel.


Oh, when I took the lamp down I thought it was in series. One wire led to
the next like in an Xmas tree.

Let me ask the question just one last time: How do I use the tester to see
if there's any power reaching the switch to begin with?