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lights dimming throughout house

5K views 24 replies 10 participants last post by  Dave Sal 
#1 ·
Hey guys,

I happened to be standing in front of the stove waiting for water to boil and noticed that the light above the stove, which was on, seemed to be dimming for a millisecond every five seconds or so. I figured it might be a light bulb getting ready to go bad so I checked in the bathroom and noticed the same thing. Then I asked my wife if she noticed anything similar and she did as well. Since it seems to be affecting the whole house I was wondering if anyone has any idea what might be the cause. Thanks

By the way, back in the late 80's we had some guy from ComEd, our electrical supplier, come out and changed these cartridge things on the lines where the electrical service attaches to the house.
 

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#2 ·
are any lights getting brighter than normal when others are getting dimmer than normal? if so, bad neutral connection, if not bad load connection. call poco asap to have there equipment connections checked. That is what they did on your house before. are your neighbors having the same problem? If so defiantly poco problem.

until situation is fixed it is a good idea to shut off any and all electronics in the house.

bernie
 
#7 ·
Well, today as I was standing in front of the stove, the light above it would dim ever so slightly for an instant and then go back to normal. It continues to do that once every four or five seconds, continually, and it is still doing it now. It's just barely visible, and you probably wouldn't notice unless you stared at the same spot for a minute or two.
 
#8 ·
I would not be waiting to call the power company.
A loose nutral on the incoming power could be the problum and this is very serious and could take out anything that's pluged in.
 
#9 ·
A voltmeter would come in handy, although some voltmeters have a "smoothing" effect whereby you would not see such a brief drop in voltage.
 
#10 ·
The power company sent a tech out and he found no issues. The dimming of the lights has now stopped as well. Really strange. I'm guessing that someone nearby was using some power tools or something that needed a lot of power. Oh well, it seems to have resolved itself. Thanks for the replies.
 
#11 ·
lights dimming throughout house, un needed comment

Unless someone was using your power to your house it would have no effect on your lights at a differant location.
 
#14 ·
It might be wise to use a volt meter and monitor
your supply voltage for a while.
Sounds like you had a loose connecttion somewhere !
If some lights go up whilst others go down,
that means that it is most likely in the neutral line.

If on the other hand, lights only go down,
then its either a loose connecttion in the hot line,
or not enough power available at the tranny.

Loose connecttions DONT fix them selves,
He obviously moved or fixed something,
he might have done it with out even knowing it.
 
#16 ·
I had this happen in my last house. Went on for years, went through light bulbs like nobody's business. No one could find anything wrong. I hired an electrian at a later date to install an outside light and he told me that my home was like a large box of flowing electricity. I believe it had to do with an outside ground or panel ground. Very very dangerous. Get an explanation, some electricians are to lazy or just don't know. Ask questions on the phone before they come out to make sure they know what they are doing. It took about 5 electricians before one found it.
Flowing
 
#24 ·
Update:

Well, I had the power company come out and this guy seemed pretty sharp. He changed out the power connection to the house (those cartridge things at the end of the wires, whatever they are called) and when I told him that the lights continued to flicker, he went up on the pole in the alley and said he put us directly on their power to see if the problem resolved. It did not. He said that he did everything he could and their end is fine, so since it is affecting the lights on multiple circuits it is a bad main breaker that needs to be replaced. He said it is not dangerous but needs to be changed as soon as possible. I will get on that right away. I assume that the power needs to be shut down in order to change out the breaker so I'll need an electrician as this is not something that I should do on my own. Is this correct? Thanks again for the responses.
 
#25 ·
Final update.

Just wanted to let everyone know what the outcome was. Apparently there was nothing wrong with the main breaker in the house. The problem was a dying freezer. The unit finally gave out and we ended up losing a couple hundred dollars worth of frozen food. I believe the compressor was cycling on and off and that was causing the lights to dim. Ended up throwing out the old freezer and getting a new one. Problem solved and no more dimming lights.
 
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