My wife turned on the wall switch and the pendant light over our dining room table went out. The fuse outside didn’t blow—none of them needed to be reset. I checked for power in the light’s hanging cord, but nothing. I pulled the wall switch to check for power and nothing there either. Thoughts?
By “fuse” do you mean “circuit breaker?” What do you mean by checked for power, are you saying you put a multimeter on the light’s cord and the light switch, with the circuit energized, and aren’t getting any signs of electricity?
Yeah. Crazy, right?
Since you said you aren’t getting power to the bulb at all with the switch on. I would start by killing power via the circuit breaker, unscrewing the cover of the switch and checking the continuity between the two powered terminals on the switch using a multi-meter. It should read continuous when on, not when off.
If that test passes, check for GFCI outlets on the same circuit, see if any of them are tripped. A GFCI outlet, when properly wired, will protect an entire circuit and cut power to it.
Ever figure out what this was?
Nope, I’ve called an electrician to sort it. Also have a switch upstairs that does nothing. Gonna have him go all detective on that, too.
Those are the frustrating issues.
When we first moved to this house (different than the one I mentioned elsewhere in the comments), I had a breaker that would seemingly randomly trip, knocking out power for some lights in the basement and a pond in the back yard. A year or two later we removed the drop ceiling in the basement and discovered a wire that was not properly secured into a metal box…it had moved enough over time that it had worn through the insulation and the hot wire was occasionally touching the metal box, causing the trip. Sigh. Hopefully it’s not a situation like that!
It was a short in a nearby outlet (in the next room!) Never would’ve figured that out.
