Expert: PV Electric Bob Mossman - 4/16/2004

Question
The lights in my house have suddenly began occasionally flickering.  The house is a 1930s house that has had a few updates on the electical.  We have the newer style breakers (that you flip, not push in). Most of the house is 3 wires, some of it is 2 wires with the old steel conduit as the ground.


We noticed the bathroom lights flickering. I replaced the bulb thinking it was a filement. Then we began to notice that the hall light outside the bathroom would flicker as well.  It didn't coincide with anything kicking on and this all appeared out of the blue.  It got to be more frequent and they would go nearly clear off briefly. After the worst one, I went down and started looking for anything that looked wrong.  The breaker to our dehumidifier was tripped. I flipped it back, the dehumidifier (plugged in right next to the box) kicked on, and the lights were flickering and dimming badly. I shut it off, everything quit and that seemed to be our problem... something wrong with the old dehumidifier.

The next morning, my Fiance mentioned that she thought her hall closet light flickered.  Then while blowing her hair dry, she said the hall did it.  This afternoon she mentioned her closet definately did it again.  This is all with the dehumidifier unplugged.  Also note that the hall and bathroom lights share a breaker, but it is different from the dehumidifier, and different yet from the bedroom closet.  Plugging the dehumidifier back in and turning it on also causes them to flicker again.

Is there anything I can eliminate before paying an electrician?  It seems to be random and I'm not sure and electrician will do anything more than charge us and say there is no problem (there certainly is something going on). All appliances seem to function fine. We've added nothing new to the system.  Judging from this being across various breakers (even on opposite sides of the box), could it be the main breaker?  It almost seems like there isn't enough juice to go round, but this has never been a problem.  I am, of course, worried about a fire hazzard.

Sorry so long, I wanted to cover all bases. Thanks so much for the help!!

Answer
Ryan,

You have a loose connection some where along this circuit. Turn the circuit off, go around and take stock of the lights that are on it. Make note of the lights on this circuit that don't flicker VS the ones that do. Once you know which are which take down the good fix's that are closest to the ones your having a problem with and check the connections in the box to make sure they are tight. This can be a long or short process but one you must do in order to locate the problem. If you strike out with the fixture's then start with the switches that control the lights your not having a problem with and see how good those connections are. LEt me know how you make out Ryan.........

Bob