Connecting the black wire to white wire in light fixture

Possibly the wires you connected to are connected wrong at the other end.

Thanks for the reply! I've been curious about that too. If that's the case, do you think its a fire hazard? And wouldn't that mean the whole house is backwards? I don't know anything about electricity so I'm being very cautious.

Have you found other outlets or lights/fans with the black/white reversed?

What type of light is it? For incandescent lights, it doesn't matter which way you connect it. It doesn't make sense that it blows bulbs one way and not the other, though.

No, I haven't found any other lights/outlets that are reversed but I haven't opened them all up yet to look. I did thou look at the ceiling light fixture in the kitchen last night and it did not appear reversed. It had black to black and white to white.

Hi, thanks for the reply. Its just a simple flush mount fixture that had 3 wires (Black, white and ground). It has three 60-watt bulbs, incandescent, candelabra bulbs (with the small bases). We were stumped when it was blowing the bulbs. I wonder if they were blown because when we flipped the switch on, we only had one of the three bulbs in? After shooting two bulbs, my friend reversed the wires (making black connect with white), then it didn't blow the bulb. But, that time, I physically put the bulb in instead of him and I noticed that it seemed to require more turning to get it to seat properly. I think perhaps he didn't screw them in quite far enough (just pondering that). If that's the case, its probably just a coincidence that when we reversed the wires that it worked. I guess the curious part of me wants to understand WHY it doesn't matter if they are reversed when its an incandescent light??? And...do you think its safe to leave it reversed??? Thanks for any additional feedback...this is VERY helpful!!

I would say that if no problems are arising, you are safe. The blown light could have been a result of an unnoticed wire making contact and shorting, but no longer shorting after you rewired it the last time.

Try touching both wires to your tongue.

No, seriously, NEVER do that - Unless you're, safely, standing in water.

The reason it doesn't matter for an incandescent light it that it is just a wire heating up when current flows through it. It doesn't matter which direction the current flows and there are no other electronics in it. That said, I would correct the wiring. A couple of years from now, someone might want to work with that wiring and they might be confused.