Sorry this is off topic but I know there are a lot of good electrical guys in here.

The lights in my house have been flickering a lot lately. First it was just the kitchen now more rooms are doing this. Almost like the power is going to go out. Then out of the blue it will be fine no problems.

What do you think this is?


When I weld I use the dryer outlet but then I unplug it so I don't think this has nothing to do with my welding ...I hope not.


Modified by essex at 5:52 PM 9/10/2007

 

Have you localized the flickering to one particular breaker?

 

Well they are fuses.....and it's like the fuses don't just control one room like one might run the kitchen and a room in the basement. Or a room in the basement and a a bed room.

Do I just pull them out and see which one makes it go away?

Thanks.

 

Well, you can pull them one at a time to identify which is running off of each fuse. It'd probably be good to mark your box so you can remember later too. Just basically see if you can localize the flickering to one particular fuse, and that'll help you narrow down the issue whether it be on particular bit of wiring for an outlet or set of outlets or if the issue is at the box or even worse.

 

We had this issue after we had work done, probably almost seemed to fix itself. Before it went away we call the electrician back out, turns out some connections were in fact loose.

 

yeah, sounds like a loose connection to me. i'd check the fuses first to make sure they are all in securely, then start pulling switches after that to check connections.

 

hey guys the lights finally went out lol

So I checked all the fueses...they are good

I bought one of those AC testers that beep when ac is present You just have to put the probe near the wall or circuit.

It beeps when I put it near the switches and lights....so there is ac present....if power is present at the light socket but the blubs don't light up ...what does that mean? I mean for the light socket i can put the probe near the socket and flick the swicth and the probe will beep.

I know I know I will have an electrician come in but just seeing if it is something simple that I can fix.

Thanks

 

Its only going to beep or light up when there is a potential for voltage. So the hot leg is there but maybe the neutral leg is loose or the wire has a bad connection at the breaker box or a junction box somewhere in the wall.

use a real volt meter to test for voltage.

 

are they flourecent lights, if so its the ballast
if not then its possible youve lost the neutral circuit.

 

do you have aluminum wire, cuz thats what it sounds like, the alumium wire was used in the old days (correct me if i'm wrong 70's -80's) cuz it was cheaper than copper but they soon found out that it has a lower boiling point than copper. this means that over time when something draws some current through the wire it softens and kinda shrinks, causing loose connections and flickering lights etc.
you should check your electrical panel and see if there is any silver colored wires in there. if there is figure out where they're going and tighten all connections on recepticals and light switches. for safety reasons if you have aluminum wire you should tighten all connections on a regular basis like once a year or so.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by higgunscrx &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">do you have aluminum wire, cuz thats what it sounds like, the alumium wire was used in the old days (correct me if i'm wrong 70's -80's) cuz it was cheaper than copper but they soon found out that it has a lower boiling point than copper. this means that over time when something draws some current through the wire it softens and kinda shrinks, causing loose connections and flickering lights etc.
you should check your electrical panel and see if there is any silver colored wires in there. if there is figure out where they're going and tighten all connections on recepticals and light switches. for safety reasons if you have aluminum wire you should tighten all connections on a regular basis like once a year or so.</TD></TR></TABLE>


Yes it's aluminum wire I will check that out then thanks....I mean today when someone was walking by all of a sudden the lights worked for a bit(I guess from the vibration of the walking).

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by NLR &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">are they flourecent lights, if so its the ballast
if not then its possible youve lost the neutral circuit.</TD></TR></TABLE>

No they aren't florecents just regular tungsten blub lights.

Ok thanks guys let me see what I can find

 

let us know what happens. my sisters place had the same thing happen and suprise suprise it was aluminum wiring tightened it all up and no more problems ... for now anyways!

 

I'm just up in north york so I will let you know


Modified by essex at 8:52 PM 9/23/2007

 

its been a while just wondering if its all fixed now?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by higgunscrx &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">do you have aluminum wire, cuz thats what it sounds like, the alumium wire was used in the old days (correct me if i'm wrong 70's -80's) cuz it was cheaper than copper but they soon found out that it has a lower boiling point than copper. this means that over time when something draws some current through the wire it softens and kinda shrinks, causing loose connections and flickering lights etc.
you should check your electrical panel and see if there is any silver colored wires in there. if there is figure out where they're going and tighten all connections on recepticals and light switches. for safety reasons if you have aluminum wire you should tighten all connections on a regular basis like once a year or so.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Not exactly. The problem is that aluminum and copper have different rates of thermal expansion. Over times, this causes the joints to loosen, and then arcing happens between them, causing a fire.

Tightening the connections is not a sufficient repair, because they'll just loosen up again later. Either the house needs to be rewired with copper, or (better and cheaper) all copper-aluminum connections need to be fixed. There's lots of devices available at hardware stores for connecting copper to aluminum, and there's outlets and switches available which are compatible with aluminum wiring.

Get this fixed soon before your house burns down. Countless fires have been caused by this very problem.

Here's a Wikipedia article all about aluminum wiring, which gives many useful tips about how to deal with it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_wire