What happened to my lights?

Question

I had a guy installed some recess lights in my kitchen. He changed my switch to a sensor, and told me I could reset it. After he left, I followed the instructions on how to reset the lights, it didn't work. I noticed also that every time the furnace started working the lights would flicker. The lights never went of and I had no switch to turn them of. I went to bed around midnight and the lights were still on. This morning when I woke up, I had no lights in the kitchen, in the bathroom next to it and outside. None of the kitchen switches worked and even my alarm keypad had no lights, and my furnace stopped working. I thought one of the fuses had blown. I tried to call the guy, he never answered. Since it's Sunday I figured he would call me tomorrow. Mysteriously at 9:30 all the lights came back on, the alarm key bad is back on, the furnace is working again. It's as if instead of putting a sensor he put a timer that turned off everything for an extended period of time.

? · Answer

Was this "guy" a licensed electrician?  If not, he had NO business doing electrical work in your home.  He obviously made some serious mistakes and/or cut corners.  He obviously doesn't know what he is doing and doesn't know how to make proper connections.  And no other loads are allowed to be on the circuit powering the furnace.

You should ask for your money back for all his labor, then you hire a licensed electrician to clean up everything he did wrong and make everything to Code.

And he DID use LED lights, and not incandescent or CFL ones, right?

James · Answer

None of this makes sense.. a furnace by code has to be on its own breaker. Older homes get away with this but it shouldn't affect the kitchen which again by code need separate breakers. You can usually tell a motion sensor from a timer by the plastic half dome instead of a timers flat screen. So either the "guy" really messed up or he hit a problem with some shoty electrical work.

5204 · Answer

I think he did use lights. I assume he wasn't supposed to. He was recommended by someone. He's done work for other people that I know and they were satisfied. He does a lot of remodeling downtown.  He's supposed to know what he is doing. He did a remodeling project for me which including changing he lights. He still has not finished the job and I owe him the final portion of the bill. I won't pay until he fixes the problem.

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What happened to my lights?

3 Answers