I have two outside lights on the same circuit and they weren't working, so I went to change the bulbs. One bulb had blown, but one was fine -- I tested it inside, and it still works. But it wasn't working with the outside lights, and neither did a new bulb. But using my current detector pen I could verify that the wires were live. I tried screwing the bulb in again, and the weird thing was that doing this made the wires go dead.
I did this over and over, with both light sockets, and the same thing happened every time. The circuit is live, but screwing in a working bulb kills the power (but not by tripping any switch on the fusebox). Unscrew it a bit and the wires are live again. I turned off the power at the fusebox and checked all the wires and connections, everything was fine, no loose connections, no wrong wiring, no damaged wires. One of the sockets had some carbon on a contact from where one of the bulbs had blown, so I cleaned that off, but that didn't help.
Might this be some safety feature with the socket (which looks simple enough)? Or is there likely to be a fault somewhere in the circuit? Do I need to get an electrician in?
I did this over and over, with both light sockets, and the same thing happened every time. The circuit is live, but screwing in a working bulb kills the power (but not by tripping any switch on the fusebox). Unscrew it a bit and the wires are live again. I turned off the power at the fusebox and checked all the wires and connections, everything was fine, no loose connections, no wrong wiring, no damaged wires. One of the sockets had some carbon on a contact from where one of the bulbs had blown, so I cleaned that off, but that didn't help.
Might this be some safety feature with the socket (which looks simple enough)? Or is there likely to be a fault somewhere in the circuit? Do I need to get an electrician in?