John Grabowski wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...
Ok, please don't mind me and my inexperience in home repair, my husband
and i just purchased our first home, and I am learning as I go.

So I tried to change the light in my kitchen, because the old one just
stopped working. So I go to the shop and buy myself a fancy new light,
get home, open the instructions and get to work. I hadn't even really
done anything yet, I was in the process of removing the old light bulb
from the old fixture and this big spark happened, and all the lights in
and near the kitchen went off. so i called my father in law and he
said to flip the switch in that circuit breaker box, and when i went to
do that, another spark, and everything turned off. Then he told me to
flip the main switch, which I did, and everything except the kitchen
and the room near the kitchen came back on. I am going to call an
electrician tomorrow, but i would really like to know what on earth
happened.

any help or insight would be greatly appreciated, and thanks in advance
for your time.

Jasmin


Leave the circuit breaker for the kitchen lights off. Remove the old light
fixture and only disconnect the wires that are directly connected to the
light fixture. Do not disconnect any wires in the ceiling box that are not
connected to the light fixture. Once the fixture is down separate the wires
that were connected to it and cap off with wire nuts. Now try to reset the
circuit breaker. If it resets without any problem go and check to make sure
everything is working and turn the switch on that controlled the old light
fixture. If the circuit breaker doesn't trip, shut it off and proceed to
install the new light fixture. If the circuit breaker continues to trip you
may have a problem somewhere within your wiring, but I'm thinking that it
was just a problem with the old light fixture.

You should always shut off the power before doing any electrical work.

Agreed; cheap light fixtures sometimes sport the combination of badly
mounted sockets and seizing the light bulb so that when you try to
remove the bulb they twist a bit and can short out. I think the circuit
breaker blew because the socket was still shorted out when you turned
it back on; I've never tried that myself, but I wouldn't be surprised
if it would arc a bit opening up to see a dead short. As this guy said,
at a minimum you need to remove the old fixture (while the breaker is
off), cap the wires, and turn the breaker back on; in all probability
that ought to work fine, then off with the breaker again and install
the new fixture.