Help

Velez

Last night I spent several hours trying to install track lighting. Now i have now power to the front of my house and every time I turn on the switch the breaker jumps and the house goes dead.

Please help.

rgsgww

You wired something wrong, can you take a picture of the wires?

theatretch85

Yet another post where some one didn't label/mark the wires and disconnected everything in the box. I will never understand why people think they need to disconnect every wire in the box just to change light fixtures or switches.

Velez

Wow, You're rude theatretch85. The house is from 1955 and everything fell apart when I opened it.

Velez

rgsgww thanks, that's a good idea. I did get the power back on. The only problem now, is every time I turn on the light switch the breaker jumps and shuts everything down. All the wires are old and most just have black tape on them. I can't really tell what colors they were. I will post some pictures soon. Thanks again for being so helpful.

rgsgww

Thats kind of dangerous...I know how that fabric can be. You might just want to be safe and run new wire for that junction...

You must have a hot attached to your switch with a neutral...

theatretch85

Velez, Sorry I assumed this was like every other person coming here with this problem; they go to change a light fixture and rip apart all the wire connections in the box (instead of just the two that connect to the old fixture) and then wonder why it doesn't work when they put the new fixture in.

You probably have a switch loop that is shorting the incoming hot to the neutral, you'll have to open the switch up and figure out how its wired then find the switch wires in the light box.

The Hot power coming in should go through the switch, if its a switch loop one wire to the switch gets the Hot wire incoming, and the other goes directly to the light's black or hot conductor. Tie the neutral wires together in the fixture and that should take care of it.

Velez

Thanks for the help. I will give it a shot. It looks like I have two clusters of wires (Black and White) coming into the box, with a third set coming in from another part of the house. I am told this would be the "Circuit" that everything in the front of the house is wired on.

Yoyizit

I would have come to the same conclusion.
In any case, from the condition of the wires it sounds like Mr. Velez needs an electrician. Otherwise, the OP could try heat shrink tubing to get some more life out of the wire insulation.
They are probably also brittle.