Exia_91 t1_ita58n9 wrote on October 22, 2022 at 1:40 AM

Porch Light Mystery

Just bought a new house two months ago. Porch light originally worked no problem. After changing the bulb, the fixture began to flicker. Then, after a week or so, the fixture died.

I recently rewired the switch panel inside. It used to have some old school dial timer that I’ve never seen before. That dial did have a power light above it, which also died.

Multimeter says I have a perfect 120V to the switch. When I test the wires outside, the best I get is like 80V when I test with one lead on the hot and one lead on the ground.

I did noticed that the box and old fixture had a ton of loose material inside and clearly had some moisture. Cleaned it all out, cut off corroded part of wiring, wired up a new fixture, no joy.

Nuts are on tight, no problems at the switch.

What am I doing wrong?

AKdgaf t1_itags62 wrote on October 22, 2022 at 3:20 AM

My guess would be corrosion further along the lines leading away from the fixture that wasn't visible. Corrosion will 100% cause voltage drop in a line. If it were me, I would get some new cable, use the old cable to pull the new cable through and wire that up. Worst case scenario it still doesn't work but you know you've got nice non corroded wiring and eliminated another variable.