Did I blow my recess lights when replacing halogen bulbs with the new CFL bulbs?

Question

I replaced halogen bulbs with the new CFL bulbs for my recess lightings in my living room. When i switched on the recess lights, i heard a pop sound from one of the bulbs (mostly from overhead). I replaced the old halogen bulbs back - and now the recess light does not work!

Any ideas?

I did not know that CFL bulbs cannot be used in recess lights with dimmers.

Answer 1

turn off the breaker and take the fixtures down. that popping sound  you heard was a hot wire grounding out to metal.

Answer 2

one other thing that it may be is the temperature sensing unit. if the fixture gets too hot, there is a t-stat inside the fixture that will not allow it to turn on, if that broke, that could be the culprit. now a word on cfl bulbs. junk. do you know they contain mercury? if you break one, the feds say you have to do a clean up like a major disaster. do you really want all that imported from china mercury in our landfills? do you know that the plants that make these things are in china, coal burning, no emissions controls? they spew more pollution in the atmosphere than you would ever burn up by using a regular lamp in your life time. and did i mention they are filled with mercury. oops i guess i did. i am NOT some tree hugger. just to let you know what you are REALLY buying into.

Answer 3

CFL lamps normally cannot be used with dimmers.  First make sure your circuit breaker didn't trip.  If that isn't the case, you might have blown your dimmer switch.  You can test this by replacing the dimmer switch with a simple toggle wall switch to see if anything works.

Answer 4

did you know that if you touch a halogen bulb with your hand or fingertips the oils in your hand will blow out the light bulbs i was told this by a person at the home depot because i changed a halogen work light and it didn't work and the man asked me how did i change it ......i told him bare hands and he said that was the problem went home tried a glove instead and it worked