On Friday, January 31, 2014 8:55:42 AM UTC-5, dadiOH wrote:
wrote in message



About a year ago I had two recessed lights installed in

the hallway. They were previously regular lights, so I

was told it was just cutting a hole out and hooking the

wiring back up. He also changed the switches to the newer

flat switches. They worked for 2 months until one day it

just stopped working. I'm not too keen working with

electricity.



Just a few weeks ago I called the actual makers of the

recessed lighting and they said that it "sounds" like a

problem with both of the actual units internal

components. Seemed a little weird to me, i thought it had

something to do with the wiring. But I got the new units,

thinking that will an easy fix on my side. Since all the

wiring is set up I could just match the connections with

the new identical unit.



Switched off the power to the hallway, tested making sure

I turned off the right breaker. Then installed white to

white / black to black / ground to ground on one of the

units, leaving the other one alone. Put a light in, and

as soon as I switched on the breaker, I heard a pop near

the actual light. And the breaker popped to the middle

position. Looked up online which said it's in the neutral

position after being popped.



Call an electrician. Wiring a 3 way is not as simple as what you did, there

is another wire involved. Additionally the power can come from various

locations (switch, light).



He didn't wire the 3-way circuit, he just replaced a recessed light
in a 3-way. And from his description of what he did, ie
old light connected to black, wht, gnd and duplicating that with
the new light, that is the correct procedure.

I agree about calling the electrician because something is wrong,
two recessed lights don't just stop working at the same time
because of some simultaneous failure in year old fixtures, and
he doesn't have the skills to safely find and fix it. I wouldn't
be surprised if this year old installation was some hack job.