Electrical question

Fun little electrical issue in our house that I’d love to throw to the tradesmen and armchair experts of IDO. In the entryway between our attached garage and the house, we have a single bulb fixture. The switch for this light is in the kitchen immediately inside the backdoor maybe 5 feet away. When you turn the light switch on, nothing happens— until at some point in the future, it does. It takes hours to kick on. Once it’s on, it works great, no flicker or anything irregular. But if you switch it off and try to turn it back on, you are in for another weight of several hours.

House was built in the 50s and we’ve been here 17 years. Issue just popped up this year.

I’m all ears. In the meantime I will just be sitting here waiting for that dumb light to come back on and drinking beers.

Bad bulb, switch, or a loose connection. Have someone look at it. Intermittent electrical issues can cause fires.

It’s not the bulb for sure, tried several before I realized what was happening. I have checked the connection on both ends and seems good. Can try swapping a known good switch, don’t know why I didn’t think of that.

If its not the switch, it’s most likely the socket the bulb screws into.
The rivets get hot and lose contact. This would be in the bottom of the socket where the base of the bulb touches. Try wiggling the bulb and see if it flashes.

Steve Hix wrote:

If its not the switch, it’s most likely the socket the bulb screws into.
The rivets get hot and lose contact. This would be in the bottom of the socket where the base of the bulb touches. Try wiggling the bulb and see if it flashes.

I did try that and it didn’t have any affect. If it was getting too hot and losing contact, then I’d expect it to turn off automatically after being left on for long periods. That’s not the case— it will stay on forever, just takes forever to turn on if it gets turned off.

Time for a new switch and if that doesn’t fix it then Tim for a new light bulb socket

What ever it is, it is a safety issue…

Is your house breakers or fuses? Is it the only device (outlet/fixture) on the circuit? Is your house wired with romex or greenfield cobuit? Is it copper or aluminum wire? Did someone add this circuit extension after the house was originally wired?

Somewhere in that circuit you have a loose/curroded connection…

Happy hunting, it could be anywhere, inside the light fixture, at the back of a an outlet, at the breaker/fuse panel, in a pull box, a conduit, wire nut, or taped joint.. If it is ronex wired, someone could of driven a drywall screw or nail through the insulation… Have you hung any new shelves lately?

The questions can go no…

If you have a tester that would go a long way in determining your problem. If you take the cover plate off the switch and can safely test the switch while it’s in the base this would tell you once you turn the switch on is there power to the wire leading to the light. In a single pole switch the power can be hooked to either terminal on the switch, normally power to the switch would be connected to the bottom screw but doesn’t have to be. Once the switch is turned on you should have power to both screws on the switch. You can also use the tester at the light socket to test for power there once you turn the switch on. Need to be careful that you don’t touch the leads together when testing the socket or switch or you will cause a short and blow the breaker. Remember you need one of the probes to the neutral/ground and the other to the screws on the switch or the center portion in the light socket. You may also need to remove the switch to be able to get to the neutral or ground wire in the switch. If this is too complicated or you don’t like working with electricity hire an electrician because like what is mentioned by other this could potentially be a serious issue.

I was able to determine it wasn’t the switch— since it’s a double I just switched the wires bottom to top so it was easy to rule that out when the light still didn’t work on the known-good switch.

Replaced the entire light fixture yesterday and it’s all good. That thing was ancient and corroded. Could’ve been the socket or the old cloth wiring or both that was causing the issue. All good with the new fixture.

Thanks for the help everyone. It got me moving to fix it sooner than later since it sounds like that fixture could’ve been an accident waiting to happen.

Do you have a voltmeter? I would pull the switch and check continuity of the switch to make sure it is working right. Just swapping the hot from one input to another won’t tell you if the switch is working right. Or just replace the switch since they are around $2.

Yes checked voltage as well after work was completed. The switch began working perfectly when wired to a different existing fixture and also worked with the the new fixture. Confident the switch is all good.

dirtywater wrote:

Yes checked voltage as well after work was completed. The switch began working perfectly when wired to a different existing fixture and also worked with the the new fixture. Confident the switch is all good.

I would agree.