Yesterday, as I turned on the light switch to the laundry room the light went on for a fraction of a second then I heard a “pop” and out went the light.
At first, I thought that it was just the bulb that went - no big deal. However, when I tried to turn on another light in the laundry room, it would not go either. All plugs were also dead.
No problem I thought - breaker must have tripped. Went to the panel, but the breaker for the laundry room had not tripped. Tried resetting it anyways, but no luck. Everything is still dead in the room.
Where should I look to start solving the problem? What could the causes be?
Are any other breakers tripped? Could be mislabeled in the panel.
The “POP” may have been the filament shorting out the circuit when it broke.
Was the pop in the light or the switch? and how far away are the breakers? You may have heard the sound of the breaker tripping.
More later.
Crazy, this just happened to me too. I tried the bulb, but nothing, then the breaker, nothing, then the switch - that was it. So I replaced the switch with a nice new dimmer switch! Now everything works!
Any of the outlets in the room GFCI or independently fused?
I guess the worst case is if the filament shorted when the light blew and took out the wiring with it. But that’s a pretty unlikely scenario. How old is the house?
None of the breakers tripped and I am confident that all the breakers on the panel are labelled correctly.
I’m pretty sure that the POP came from the light fixture that is connected to the switch (the other light I tried is one of those “pull-on-the-cord-to-turn-on” dealies), but I can’t say for sure. As I say, no breakers tripped, and I tried resetting it anyways.
Start with the closest opening to the breaker panel when you trouble shoot. It could be in the switch, the light box or any of the other receptacles, or GFCIs in the room. You may have an open nuetral or a splice that came undone. Check for voltage at the outlets if you have a voltmeter. If you cant do this you may have to get someone who can. If you dont have voltage to ground at any of the openings then you should try to trace the circuit back to the breaker. Sometimes the wire that terminates on the breaker can be loose or the nuetral in the panel for that circuit could be loose too. Removing the cover on the panel and inspecting (if you need to go this far) is fairly dangerous and should be left to those who are comfortable doing it. If you feel brave enough, bring a flashlight and turn off the main breaker before removing the cover (once again if you have eliminated all other possibilities). Then you can inspect the terminations in the panel. Sometimes an overcurrent situation can cause an already poor connection to "open up" and at this point you dont have any power in the circuit from the “open” point through the rest of the circuit.
The GFCI that protects that room may be in the bathroom or below the panel itself. Try resetting all of them.
GFCI`s are the outlets with the buttons in the middle of them that say Test and Reset. Try looking for any in the house that have the Reset button that popped out. First - replace the bulb in that fixture that popped or just remove it for now.
correction;
The GFCI that protects that room may be in the bathroom or below the electrical panel itself. Try resetting all of them.