Light Bulbs Burnt out all at once

It would have been helpful if you told us whether putting in new bulbs made them light again.

Repost with that info and you'll get better answers.

Cheers,

Jeff

How long had the bulbs been working, an hour or two, 1 day or two, a week or two, a month or two, or a year or two?

A very short interval, a scant few hours of operation implies an electrical wiring issue, OR, your house took a lightning strike that killed the lamps. Any other light bulbs in the house die at the same time?

There are several possible issues. I would guess that there is a wiring problem at the one that is still functioning or at the next one on the line. If this is true, then replacing the bulbs will not fix it (other than maybe getting it to work for a while by giggling the wires back together at the break).

Sorry, I may have missed this in another post (my news server isn't always reliable), but just to be clear, is the problem with the bulbs themselves or the fixtures? If it's the latter, then I'd like to ask if these fixtures are installed in an insulated ceiling and, if so, are they rated for such? This is a long shot, but if the problem is fixture related, it could be tied to the thermal protection element.

Now I apologize for asking this and I don't mean to sound critical, but I'm wondering why you are using standard 60-watt light bulbs in recessed can fixtures (with a standard A19 bulb, half or more of the available light is lost inside the fixture housing). You would get far more usable light and less potentially damaging heat build-up, if you switched to a halogen flood/spot or, better yet, a reflector style CFL.

Cheers, Paul

Sounds like a simple open circuit. Examine the wiring to the first bulb (presumably the only one that works) and look for a black or white wire leading to the rest of the bulbs that has fallen out of the wire nut.

It's not a wiring problem... it's the bulbs... they all just died. Like, shake them and they rattle.

Replaced them all and they work fine now. They had all been working for about 6 months just fine.

I would guess the most likely cause is an intermittently open neutral causing the line voltage to sometimes go wacky. You need to check for the incoming neutral wire to be properly and securely connected to the neutral bus in your service panel and any subpanels, and for any neutrals feeding subpanels to be securely connected to the neutral bus in your main panel. If you have a problem there, it must be corrected urgently since electrical equipment with improper voltages can be a significant fire hazard.

However, I have heard of mass burnouts caused by especially severe line voltage surges. I have seen a store with 4-foot rapid start fluorescent lamps where most of them died during such a "mass burnout".

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

Take Don's advice. If you do have the problem it can do more than just burn out lamps. My first boss had a photo studio that had that problem. He had to move shortly before I went to work for him. The building burned down.