When I first moved into the house, neither of my porch lights functioned. Troubleshooting time!
- Replace the bulbs - no change
- Power cycle all of the switches in my switch box downstairs - no change
- Check that the wires are attached at the lights themselves - no change
- Call Dad - success!
Dad took two seconds to figure out my issues. In the left light, the wire was attached but still did not have a strong enough contact point. Dad stripped the wire some more, and re-spliced. Light one works now! On the right light, my replacement bulb was bad, so we just ended up replacing it.
Lessons to be learned: Always pick off the low hanging fruit first when diagnosing a home maintenance problem. Also, the problem solving method in House M.D. will not solve all of your home maintenance problems - sometimes the patient has two conditions that have nothing to do with one another. Lastly, replacement porch lights are cheap for the most part (depends on the material it's made from). If you narrow things down to a faulty light, don't get bent out of shape over needing to fix it.
