I’m Remodeling a bathroom and I was getting ready to remove the light bar above the vanity so i went to shut the power off to the light no breakers turned the power off so I shut the main breaker off and the light still had power How can this be??????? Checked all the breakers for proper hook up in the panel. Any help would be helpful
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Are there more than one breaker boxes? Must be another unless the light is wired into the neighbors house.
mike
Either another panel somewhere or the fixture contains a standby battery.
I had a bad main breaker several years ago in a new square d box.
Turned off the main breaker and the basement light went dead. Had a battery powered work light trained on the box. I was getting ready to tie in several more circuits, and as I started to work I realized that I was hearing music from upstairs...the boom box that was plugged in to one of the work circuits.
A little investigating and it turned out that when the main was turned off, one of he bars still remained hot.
Ouch.
If one off the hot bars is still hot how would you solve that problem but i cant seem to find any other devices that are still powered and all other boxes have been disconnected
When you say the light "still had power", was it still lighting, or were you just measuring voltage there with some kind of meter or detector?
i was using a voltage detector
Voltage detectors often give bogus results. Have you determined if the light fixture remains lit?
The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable. --John Kenneth Galbraith
I have three different "non-contact" voltage detectors. One of them is very sensitive and will often pick up a voltage on a disconnected circuit that runs anywhere close to another that is live. If all your circuits are dead, it is surprising that there would be enough voltage coupling to put a voltage on a circuit. However, if your house is at all close to an outside power line, perhaps that will do it. When you run into the type of situation you have described, you probably want to double check with a cheap volt meter. A cheap volt meter may be better than an expensive one in that an expensive one may have high enough impedence to also register some voltage, although it likely will be quite a bit less than 130v.
You have two panels. If you are in the main, there will be a breaker for the sub somewhere. If you are in the sub, well, go outside to find your weatherhead, and that will tell you where to look for your main. Those non-contact testers are fine, my company requires us to carry them. They have saved my butt once or twice.