Troubleshooting a Crazy Lighting Circuit?

Advertise with us
SpartanEpoxies
Shop deals on ebay
House Repair Talk

Help Support House Repair Talk:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
S

savatreatabvr

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 14, 2013
Messages
46
Reaction score
8
I've got an issue with a lighting circuit in my kitchen, I'll explain as good as I can and I hope you understand because it's doing crazy things! Ok, I'm getting weird readings with my little electrical tester, it's the Greenlee one that emits a warbled high pitch sound when electricity is present, anyways I'm reading electricity on both of the wires that connect to my light switch, no matter if the switch is turned on or off my tester goes off on both wires but the lights don't work. I think my kitchen lighting is ran off of the GCFI outlet in my garage but the kitchen outlets work just not the lights. I'm confused, I thought only 1 wire had power at the switch until the switch was flipped on then both wires had power?
 
Your tester is too sensitive.
It sounds like you could have an open neutral at the light.
 
JoeD said:
Your tester is too sensitive.
It sounds like you could have an open neutral at the light.
Click to expand...

That's possible? I'm reading electricity at some of the neutrals and some not, what's causing that? The neutrals are dead ended at the lights, I'm assuming the neutral carries through where ever the lights getting it's power from, a outlet I imagine. I've checked every outlet and light switch in the kitchen and it all seems fine. My tester says there's electricity at the lights and switches but no lights come on! I'm blown away!
 
GOT IT! It was a bad GFCI outlet in the garage! Wow they can cause some crazy things to happen when they go bad! By the way, is it common for a GFCI outlet that powers the kitchen to be placed in the garage?
 
It was back when GFCIs first came out. Back then they often made one GFCI circuit for the garage, bathroom, kitchen, outside receptacles.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top