On Apr 23, 9:03*pm, Evan wrote:
On Apr 23, 8:28*pm, Nate Nagel wrote:





On 04/23/2011 08:24 PM, aemeijers wrote:

On 4/23/2011 5:16 PM, Jo wrote:
The other night I went to turn on the lights at the light switch by my
front door and it made some noise and the lights wouldn't come on.
Some of the electrical outlets in the neigboring room wouldn't work
either. It tripped the circuit breaker so I reset it. I tried again to
turn the lights on at the switch and it tripped the circuit breaker
again. When it does this, the light switch makes a weird noise.

Does anyone know what might be wrong here? I know the wiring in the
house is piggybacked, if that makes a difference. And should there be
any problems using the electrical outlets that are somehow connected
to the light switch, as long as I leave the lights off? My TV is
plugged into one of those outlets, so I want to make sure it doesn't
get damaged somehow.

Thanks,
Jo

Had a similar problem once. Turned out the box was cockeyed in the wall,
and they 'englished' the switch to get it as close to vertical as
possible. This was a large switch with a dimmer, so clearance was
marginal anyway. The screws holding switch to box had worked loose, and
the hot screw got close enough to the box to short out and trip breaker.
FWIU, this is a common problem when boxes are too deep in wall, and they
'float' the device on the drywall with the mounting ears, or on a stack
of washers or twist of wire, instead of using a proper extension ring..

The fact that it happened right when switch was touched, tells me that
it is most likely the switch. If it was me, I'd open that up, and since
they are so cheap, probably replace it just for giggles, in case it has
an internal fault. Of course, if OP has to pay somebody to do that, they
should have them check out the entire string, since a 1-hour service
call probably cost the same as a 5-minute call.

If screw to box clearance is in any way questionable (or if I've used
Madison hangers) I always like to wrap the device with a length of
electrical tape to prevent just this problem.

nate

--
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+1

That is a general courtesy to the next guy who has to work on it
anyway...

~~ Evan- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Everyone has overlooked the possibility that the "light" that the OP
is turning on may contain a faulty electric light bulb. If she is
turning on the lights by turning on a light switch by her front door,
and the bulb in the fixture that she expects to light up when she
turns on the switch has failed and developed an internal short, she
will get exactly the situation described. Haven't many of us seen a
breaker trip when a light bulb fails??? Disconnecting all applianes
that are plugged in, that are on the same circuit, will not solve the
problem if a bulb in a ceiling hallway fixture, for example, has a
shorted light bulb.