URGENT!!! Might have killed a wire

I'm typically for the do it yourself electrician, but:

- You switched the breaker back on and there were sparks
- You don't have a tool to check live wires
- You accidentally touched what you thought was a live wire.

Your luck is going to run out at this pace. You need to call a professional.

In such cases, I usually take help from an electrician.

ive seen this before. if you tripped the breaker multiple times or really bad the hot wire going in the breaker itself just breaks/burns/ melts the copper wire going inside/under the breaker terminal screw. to fix this would require removing the panel cover which is intimidating and checking the hot and neutral terminal connections on the breaker. I would call in a favor from family or friends with know how and have them do it can be dangerous so be safe and turn the main breaker off before working on anything in there so only the service wire terminals are live in the panel. honestly it sucks but you would want someone experienced to do anything with the panel lid off


More than likely you connected the new switch correct but when pushing the switch back into the box one of your ground/bare wires were not tucked inside well enough and were touching your hot or neutral somewhere. as for stacked switches/ double pole switches I am not familiar with