Fuse has blown !

[Iffy]

Hi,

The main fuse for all "overhead lighting" in our house has obviously blown !

My husband works away, and will be for the next 3 weeks, so I am hoping that someone can give me some ideas of how to rectify this problem possibly ......?

Yes, i've checked the "Box" and all the switches are showing upwards; so a "tripped" fuse is obviously not the problem...

Any help would be kindly accepted ......

[dx100uk]

don't assume that breakers are 'on'
just because they are up.

pull them all down
and push them up again

the majority of uplighting is driven by low voltage transformers that lie on the celling tiles/rafters somewhere [are the lamps low voltage - look at one and see what it says]

if they are low voltage then odds on the transformer has failed and needs replacing.

more info needed

dx

[George Brims]

By overhead lighting I am assuming (unlike dx100) you just mean the lights in the ceiling, whether they are the fancy kind or a socket with a bulb. Anyway this happened recently at my mother-in-law's house in Inverness. We didn't know which lights had been on or off so we didn't know which one was the culprit. Unfortunately several of them like the hall and the kitchen had more than one switch so we really couldn't tell. I had to take all the bulbs/fluorescent tubes out. Still no luck. This mean several rounds of replacing fuse wire in a plug-in fuseholder, only to have it go "pop" again. Finally got an electrician, who dismantled the fluorescent in the kitchen, and all the other lights worked. It was duff and he replaced it. He told me you can get the resettable breakers to plug in in place of those old style fuses. That will be happening soon!
dx100 is right - some makes of breaker look like they're OK even when they are tripped. It's hard to see them right when the lights are off! While you have the chance, write on the label what fuse does what as you fiddle with them.

[dx100uk]

yes the ballast transformers can fail in the florry lights causing a short.

i read it that p'haps a breaker had tripped and now was not tripping,

so that can't be a florry fitting gone down

else it would keep tripping

in such such a case, it would guess it to be :

either a low voltage lamp system and a failed low voltage transformer

or a std mains lamp has blown, but the trip lever has not dropped when the breaker is in-fact tripped.

bit diff to guess without further info.

dx

[Iffy]

Thanks dx100uk and George Brims.

Yes, dx100uk, it was actually a wall lamp, initially which went "BANG!!". We've had bother with this same one before, though not on this scale of the "whole" house ceiling lights going down !!

A good friend of ours, on the "Org" has kindly offered to come and have a look at this problem for me, so I'll let you know the outcome !!

But just to say, thanks both, once again for your replies, much appreciated !