My light switch's wiring is loose...?

Question

One of the light switches in my home was loose, so my roommate opened it up with a screwdriver to see what was going on in there. He mistakenly touched the metal part of the screwdriver to something in the wiring, and all of a sudden sparks came flying out and the electricity went out, not only for that switch but for that entire side of the house.

As you can see, my roommate and I are clueless with DIY stuff. Can anyone offer any tips as to what has happened, and what we should do?

Answer 1

Yeah, there is a lot of power going through that switch, you either blew a fuse or flipped a breaker, they usually control half a side of a room/ or house. Make sure the wires aren't grounding out in there that could cause a fire. Keep a nose out for smells after you turn power on. Go ahead and tighten it up while the electricity is out.

Answer 2

the wire on the switch went to ground when touched with the screwdriver reset the breaker and be carefull with wireing.

Answer 3

find your breaker panel (usually in garage or utility area)  and loacate thrown breaker (one not flipped to on and may have an orange indicator showing) flip the switch to off and back to on

also... don't do any diy if you don't know what you're doing have a knowledgeable friend or electrician service it and always make sure you shut off power to switch before doing anything...

Answer 4

first find your circut breaker box.  you blew a breaker and you just need to turn it back on.  after you find it, go ahead turn it back off.  then with a flashlight go back to the switch and use that s***w driver to tighten down the wires.  if they completly disconnected, remember the black wire is hot and the white wire is nuetral, green is ground and normally is attached to a s***w painted green.  in your case since it's a switch, you should just tighten everything down and reinstall it into the wall.  then turn back on power.  please be very careful!  the metal on those will be hot once power is involved.

Answer 5

Make sure the wiring is good and tight while the power is off.  In your breaker box, there should be a breaker that is half-way off.  Turn it all the way off and back on.  This should restore the power.  Shorting the hot wire to the neutral wire with the s***w driver overloaded the breaker, causing it to trip.  Your roommate is lucky he did not get electrocuted.  Don't mess with electricity if you don't know much about this stuff...  As Mr. Sparky says, stupid plumbers get wet.  Stupid electricians get dead.

Answer 6

You have probably tripped a fuse. You need to find the fusebox usually close to the eletricity meter. That should contain some switches(usually blue) that are the fuses. On the switch are singns, O for when the fuse is off and a 1 for when it is in use. find the switch that is in off position and switch it to 1. That should do the trick.

If you have an old fashioned fusebox you have no switches but white screwin caps with a small piece of glass in the top. You look through this glass. If there is a small piece of metal loose in the cap the fuse behind the cap has tripped. You need to unscrew the cap and put in a new fuse. The fuse is the white bottle shaped thingy behind the cap.  

Answer 7

You're lucky your roommate didn't get electrocuted.  Call an electrician.  Or if you are renting, tell the landlord the power is out on one side of the house (you can tell him or her why if you want to be that honest).  Offer to pay part of what it would cost to get it fixed.  

Answer 8

Ok, I've read everything up to sugarman....and now I'm gonna tell you what really happened.  The screwdriver came in contact with a hot s***w and the metal of the switch or it could have been the side of a metal box if the switch was in a metal box.  Either way......electricity went from the source to ground.  You DO NOT WANT to be grounded when messing with electricity.  You want to be isolated from electricity.  Electricity wants to be used or go to ground and you do not want to be that path to ground.  It only takes 0.06 amps to stop your heart.....less than what it takes to light one single Christmas light bulb.  Luckily, in your case, the electricity passed from the hot s***w, through the s***w driver and to ground instead of through him.  He should consider himself lucky and next time......PLEASE.....turn off the power before messing with electricity, especially because you don't know what you're doing.  Also.....white wires aren't always neutrals.  They can be "switch legs" (hot wires feeding electricity to switches)

Answer 9

I would say :

The switch is in a sequence .. all the other wiring that went out is along the trail of the sequence ( just like Christmas Lights). If one goes out in the sequence electricity stops flowing and " Everything" goes out...even those items coming before the break.This implies the switch is broken .. melted inside, destroyed contacts, cracked, etc. It is broke and electricity is not flowing.

#2... the seitch is fed from a breaker in your main panel box. The other items that went out have their main wire feeding from the same breaker too. When the switch went out it caused the breaker to flip off ..shutting off power to all wiring connected to said breaker.

Answer 10

you should check your fuse or circut breaker.p.s. dont stick ANYTHING near electrical,doing that is just asking for a zap.

Answer 11

you prolly touched a big thick black wire...and short circuted the power. go into your fuse box and start toggling some switches until you get power and dont touch that wire again, put electrical tape on it

Answer 12

Don't worry.  You just blew the fuse.  Just find the breaker box inside your house/apartment and switch it on again.   You might have to find out which switch controls what portion, but it's likely to be the one that's off....(it's obvious... since that should be the only one that's tripped and is at the "off" position when compared to the other switches)

If you're in a house, it might be in the garage.  If you're in the apartment, it should be somewhere within the unit...  or you can ask the manager.

Next time, don't do DIY if you don't know for sure what you're doing when it comes to heat and electricity.  YOU could get KILLED!   and if you HAVE to, make sure you ground yourself AND SHUT OFF the power if you can.  

good luck