We have outlets in our living room that are switched(top) and unswitched(bottom) and we have several lamps plugged in. Both legs are fed from the same breaker and the switched leg is controlled from 2 wall switches. When we turned the switch on the other night one of the bulbs popped and went out, some of the lamps on the unswitched leg started blinking, and some of the switched lamps did not come on. I replaced the circuit breaker and several of the outlets and one wall switch but it is still acting weird. Only one of the unswitched lights will come on and some of the switched lights now work. Any ideas?
Have you checked the lamps? Do they work correctly on other outlets?
Are you certain that the hot wire is running through the swithches and not the nuetral. Sounds like a short circuit but not shorted to ground neccessarily. I would call electrician unless yu are very comfortable running it down.
check the voltages between the hot and neutral. the hot and ground. the neutral and ground. If you are not sure what that will give you, call an electriction.
It’s possible the switches represent 2 sides of the electrical bus and your outlet has (2) separate 120 volt feeds going to it. If a wire comes loose you have the potential of 240 volts arcing between outlets.
For a 3-way switch setup (which I’m assuming he means by “controlled by two switches”), only one of the switches is fed from the panel, the other switch feeding the outlets. Assuming everything worked prior to this event, it’s possible that an outlet has somehow suffered an internal short between its switched and unswitched sides. This could possibly cause a feedback situation that results in bizarre behavior. As Snnipe 70E mentioned, a check between neutral and ground should show zero or nearly zero volts. A check between the top and bottom hot prongs of a split outlet when both are powered up should also be zero volts. If voltage is present, I’d call an electrician to iron things out. Gotta say that this is a new one for me.
If you have changed the outlets and a switch, then change the switch that you didn’t an see if that corrects the problem. If it does not, then you have a wiring short somewhere and for that you should probably call in a pro.
If I read the op correctly it’s a standard 2 plug outlet where one is always live and one is switched. That means it might be fed by 2 different sides of the fuse box. Power going to the switch and then on to the lower outlet and then a separate line coming in to the upper outlet. I would turn the breakers of and pull it out to see if one of the wires came loose. That would create a 220 volt situation capable of causing voltage spikes.
Before pulling the outlet I would do the test Snnipe70 suggested. If there 220 volts between the 2 hot outlets then that means there are 2 sets of 110 volt lines coming in.
There are multiple outlets, actually. I can see how there could be two phases feeding these, but I don’t see how a loose wire would create the situation you’re talking about. A loose wire (hot or neutral) could certainly cause intermittent power and flickering lights, but a dead short between phases would make itself known immediately and catastrophically.
I would pull out ALL of the outlets and BOTH switches and examine them for any problems, whether loose connections or any sign of melted insulation, etc. I hope the OP comes back and lets us know what the final diagnosis was, as I’m very curious.