First of all, make sure the lamp cord is unplugged from the wall for testing and safety purposes.

Now determine which type of bulb you have installed in your lamp, incandescent or CFL. Pictures of each are below.

                             Incandescent                                         CFL or Compact Fluorescent light

Since we are not testing the bulb in this article, if your lamp has an incandescent type bulb installed, remove it now. If it has a CFL type bulb, it will not matter if you leave it installed.

Next place a digital multimeter lead to one of the metal prongs on the plug, one on each prong. Make sure your multimeter is set in the Ohms setting to read resistance.

Take the reading. You should not get any movement on the meter, in other words an "open circuit." If you get any amount of resistance reading on the meter, then the two wires of the lamp cord are shorted together somewhere, or you forgot to remove the incandescent bulb. Look along the visible portion of the cord to see if you notice any frays or bare wires. If so then you have found your problem.

To check for a break in your wiring you will need to install an incandescent bulb into the lamp socket. This will give the circuit a complete path for testing. Now with the bulb installed, repeat step 4 above.

Now take the reading again. This time you should get a reading of anywhere between 10 and 50 Ohms depending on what wattage incandescent bulb you have used. If you do not get movement on the meter, then turn the lamp switch until you get a reading. If you have turned the lamp switch through all the settings and still have no movement on meter, then your cord has a break in it somewhere. Find the break in the cord and use our wire repair page for help fixing it.

*Note: If your lamp has three different intensities, then the Ohms in the above test will vary in each setting.

Lamp cord replacement

To replace a lamp cord, follow these simple steps. To fix the cord instead click here.

Buy a replacement lamp cord from Wal-Mart or any local home improvement store, they are usually around $2 US.

Now find the damaged point on the lamp cord and cut the damaged portion off. Make sure lamp cord is disconnected from wall before repair or replacement.

Now form two bare ends on the original lamp cord for splicing to the new cord.

Finally either twist the new wire ends together with the old wire ends seperately and cap with a wiring wing nut, or follow the wire repair guide to finish the job.   

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