I got the sense that the OP hadn't much experience with
electricity. And my sense is that there is a fault in the
light circuit.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..


wrote in message
...

I say call an electrician or an experienced electrical
handyman to
check it out - see my previous post.

I wouldnt leave the troubled circuit as is, best to get it fixed.
rather than leave a unknown issue hanging. since no one knows exactly
whats wrong it could be a larger problem, and cause a fire in the
future......

I unplug everything on any circuit that repeatedly trips a breaker,
its free easy and fast. plus it narrows down the issue. before paying
for a electrician its a good idea

one thing the pop means whatever it is is a dead short, which is
easier to find than one that trips occasionally, for no apparent
reason. I hate intermittents

On Apr 25, 7:53*am, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:
I got the sense that the OP hadn't much experience with
electricity. And my sense is that there is a fault in the
light circuit.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
*www.lds.org
.

wrote in message

...

I say call an electrician or an experienced electrical
handyman to
check it out - see my previous post.

in any case unplug everything on that breaker, does the breaker still
trip when reset?

then replace all light bulbs or just remove them does the breaker
still trip?

if these dont help the OP should call a electrician, better safe than
sorry.....

On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 06:59:31 -0400, mm
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2011 22:39:54 -0400, wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2011 05:45:18 -0400, mm
wrote:

On Sat, 23 Apr 2011 14:16:21 -0700 (PDT), 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.

There is some problem in the wires to that light, or the light fixture
itself.

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.

I don't know what you mean by piggybacked?? But I gather everything
was working until the other night, so I'm curious to know what you
mean, but I doubt it's the problem.

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?

I doubt very much if there will be. The off position he mentioned was
the position before you tried to turn the light on. If you have 3-way
switches**, two switches controlling the same light, leave both of
them the way they were. If you turned one on and blew the breaker,
and didn't turn it back off, turn it back off and leave it that way.
(Most people automatically turn a switch off if something goes wrong
when they turn it on, if they know something went wrong. You hear the
weird noise, so you probably already turned it off. You'll know when
you reset the breaker.

** They call them 3-way, but they are really 2-way, so don't wonder
which is the third way.

My TV is
plugged into one of those outlets, so I want to make sure it doesn't
get damaged somehow.

It will be okay.

It's not especially likely that the problem will be behind the wall
switch. You could take off the plate if you want, and look for soot
or black marks on the inside of the plate, or anywhere near the switch
in question. That woudl be clue there was a problem in that area, but
I really don't expect it. Is your house more than 60 years old? when
did they still use cloth insulated wires. 80 years ago? That kind of
insulation can go bad and fall off just sitting around in the wall for
80 years, but even then the wires wouldn't be touching each other.

It's more likely it's in the light fixture, which gets rained and
snowed on, at the wires or the socket. I've never had a burned-out
light bulb cause a short circuit, which is what you have. When my
bulbs burn out, they just "open" and I have an open circuit, which is
like having one more switch in the circuit which is turned off. It's
like having a water pipe with a valve closed. A short circuit is like
having a water pipe with a hole in it, except with electricity, the
leaking wire has to touch something that conducts electricity and is
connected to a return path. Water will just go anywhere.

It wouldn't hurt to unscrew the light bulb some, or even to change the
bulb, but I wouldn't throw away the old bulb without testing it in a
lamp. It's probably fine.

Thanks,
Jo
I have had bulbs short internally - much more common in low voltage
bulbs like automotive tail lamps etc - higher current per watt of
output and more vibration may have something to do with it - but #1157
dual fillament bulbs are well known for this failure mode.

I HAVE had it happen on 115 volt (or 120 - whatever you want to call
them) bulbs - the most recent one being a tri-light.

That's amazing. It sounds like at least 4 separate bulbs. In the
1157, the struts that hold the filament at each end are 1/2 inch
apart. How could they ever touch each other? I've never seen the
inside glass break.
They can, and do, fail this way. More common failure is to short the
high and low filament, but there was one brand of 1157 bulbs - cannot
remember the name, that failed shorted with allarming regularity about
25 years ago.

Tri-light? A two filament bulb, with three settings?
Yes.

In , aemeijers wrote
in part:

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.

I once saw a fixture short. The cause: The wires leading to the socket
got twisted, because the socket had turned, because someone screwed bulbs
in too tightly. The insulation on the wires got soft when the bulb was on
and making heat, then POW!

Actually, that time the short was not a dead short. Instead of the
breaker popping immediately, the fixture spewed purplish flame for about
half a minute.
--
- Don Klipstein )

In , Ed Pawlowski wrote:

"Bill" wrote
You can only use so much electricity per circuit, then the breaker will
trip. New TV's use a little more electricity than older TV's.

New TVs use lots LESS than older TVs if you are comparing LCD versus the
old CRT.

LCD TVs use less electricity than CRT TVs of the same size. But many
people have gotten bigger TVs than they had before. And external audio
equipment that is on when the TV is on.
--
- Don Klipstein )

On Apr 24, 12:38*pm, aemeijers wrote:
On 4/24/2011 11:06 AM, Bill wrote:









"Jo" wrote in message
....
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.

Could be the "straw...".

You can only use so much electricity per circuit, then the breaker will
trip. New TV's use a little more electricity than older TV's.

Try turning something off on that circuit and see if the light then works.

If that is the case, plug something from that circuit into another
circuit or have an electrician install a new outlet on a separate
circuit in that room for the TV. That will off-load the circuit...

I still think it is the switch, or maybe a fried light fixture, creating
a dead short. A breaker trip due to load wouldn't be 'instant' like OP
implied. Check the cheap and simple stuff first.

--
aem sends...

Yeah if it fails when the light is turned on that narrows the problem
down a lot. Just hope its not a nail through the cable that has been
sitting there for 30 years to finally get ya.

Jimmie