Blinking Lights?

Question

The lights in my bathroom & hallway are flickering; quick blinks, not completely on and off but quick flicks that are irritating to the eye. How do I fix this problem? Should I replace the circuit breakers or is it something more.

To add some details as requested: I own it; a single home built in 41; the lights are incandescent where I noticed the blinking. Here’s what recently happened, Thursday evening a lamp in my living room which has a fluorescent bulb in it, started blinking faint at first it then went very dim then bright; it did this 2x on the third time it stayed dim then all of a sudden I noticed a bright flash and pop behind my gas stove. It was plugged in for it would create a spark under the burners to ignite the gas. I went to inspect and noticed a small (no fire) plume of smoke, smelled like a short circuit not a fire, rising from behind it in an area where all the connections are made to control the ignition system to light the stove. The stove is 10+ yrs. old and has since then been unplugged; I'll just resort to lighting it with matches. Now can anyone explain why what happened, happened? The lights are not blinking any longer since this occurred and I now have all these colored lights.

Answer 1

Are these florescent or regular incandesant bulbs or what? Any other symptoms, even ones you think are unrelated? How long has this been going on? Does it do it all the time the lights are on, or not? If not, explain when.

You have not given us enough to work on to help you. Without more information, you will continue to get guesses and generic answers. A couple of the generic answers are good, though, and some are really bad.

Anyone who thinks this is arcing or a short circuit needs to learn a LOT more about electricity before answering questions. Wrong answers are worse than no answer. A short circuit is a very specific issue, it is not a generic condtion that explains every electrical issue.

I got a laugh out of the suggestion to put in colored bulbs and enjoy the show. That was a good joke, thank you :-) Seriously though, regular bulbs are never series wired in a normal house installation. Except perhaps for Christmas lights. Now, those are pretty when they twinkle.

It is very unlikely it is a breaker. It is more likely a loose wire. That assumes they are regular incandesant bulbs.

P.S. based on your update: interesting situation with the stove. You were right to unplug it untill you can find out what happened. The smoke coming from the back of the stove is a dead giveaway that something electrical was wrong.

Here is something to try: turn off the circuit breaker that goes to the stove's outlet. You can verify that by plugging a lamp into the outlet. With only that one breaker off, do the bathroom and hallway lights go off? If so, you now know they are on the same circuit. Lights and outlets are not supposed to be on the same circuit, but things are not always done the way they should be.

I'm going to take a wild guess here, based only on what you saw. A wire or other electrically hot part in the stove lightly and intermittantly contacted a neutral or grounded wire or part on the stove. There was either enough air movement to move the wire/part around or there was an intermittant contact because of the nature of the material. That is not unheard of, but is quite rare; usually it is an all or none connection.

It finally made good enough contact or went on for so long that enough power went through the bad connection to completely blow out the problem. Think of it like a fuse blowing. Once the wire got hot enough to burn, it disintegrated and the intermittant connection is now gone. That was the pop and the smoke that you saw. Kind of like a supernova (the star, not the band).

Is it now safe? Very likely it is NOT at all safe! There was some insulation that was gone or a hot wire was too loose. This is NOT normal, nor acceptable. The wire heating might have melted even more insulation. It also might have turned some insulation into a partial conductor. That can happen when insulation is heated too much.

Get the stove checked out by someone who really understands what overheating a wire can do. Sad to say, not every repairperson understands this. To some, it is either works or doesn't work. Among other things, they should look for a scortch mark were the wire blew out. It might be subtle so look hard. You can also look for a discolored portion of a wire, but that is less likely for you to see.

This is a very unusual situation. Please report back your findings.

LOL on the colored lights. You are a fun guy. Not to be confused with a mushroom, which is a fungi.

Loose neutral wire???? How did you come up with that based on the burning at the stove?

Answer 2

I would say at first since the beginning of the problem was a blinking/flickering "Fluorescent light", look and see if the tube has a dark or black end or both ends. A new bulb should fix that problem.
Now you have a second problem at the stove receptacle.
1- At pop, smoke etc. warns you of a loose connection.
2- This where you better call an electrician as there may be other problems.
3- The ballast in the fluorescent fixture (transformer) may have caused the problem.
4- I fail to see why a receptacle should be connected with or associated with a lighting circuit.
5- I'm thinking more than one problem which again your best bet is to have an electrician look at it. Loose connections, flickering lights and smoke most of all are all signs of something important "Safety Wise". DON'T TRY IT YOURSELF ! ! !
Good Luck and be SAFE ! ! !

Answer 3

~ Ummmm... Good question.

#1: usually a worn socket. If the light bulbs are usually high wattage 75-150 watts to provide more light, they also draw more current/amps. This generates more heat at the contact point in the center pin of the bulb and the center conductor of the socket. The heat generated weakens/softens the copper colored metal, causing intermittent breaks in current flow. If the lamp turns off for a split second, the metal cools slightly, causing it to make contact again with the lamp, and the bulb turns on again.
Remedy: (a) Turn power off to that circuit, remove the light bulb, clean the surface of the center contact of the lamp (if blackened) and the socket... prying it up slightly if it appears almost flat (which will make better contact when lamp is reinstalled); replace the light bulb, turn on breaker and test.
Remedy: (b) Change the lamp holder/socket assembly.

#2: the device that takes the most abuse is the light switch itself. Replace the light switch.
Remedy: If the #1 option does not fix the problem, hire a qualified electrician, or, go to your local hardware store... purchase the proper switch and replace it yourself, following applicable safety precautions. This should fix the problem.

#3: sometimes there are overloads on the lighting circuit breaker, which, in the USA, is a 15 amp breaker.
If, the other lights on that same curcuit get dim and brighter... as when a washing machine motor, hair dryer motor, or other motor type devices are turned on... this indicates that motors are connected to the lighting circuit, which is taboo.
Remedy: have a qualified electrician find the areas where recetacles have been 'tapped' off of your light circuit, remove them from that circuit, and run new circuit(s) for the electrical devices that caused the problem(s).

#4: Else, it may be a matter of just having a defective circuit breaker.
Remedy: have a qualified electrician remove and replace the defective circuit breaker.

Answer 4

Hey Rob,
What is causing you lights to flicker is most likely "current draw"
or a grounding issue. If you use an iron for your clothes or hair dryer, or small portable electric heaters, these items draw alot of current and will cause the lights to flicker..

Depending on how hands on you want to be, here are a few things to try before you start replacing light bulb and getting into receptacles and switches...
(1) lets find out if this is one circuit... turn the affected lights on.
(2) go to the Breaker box and turn off breakers one by one finding the one for the lights that are flickering. Most likely one breaker will take care of those areas.
(3) Now with that breaker off and the lights in the bath and hall off,
lets check a few things.... If you have a small lamp or something you can test the receptacles in the area of the bath and hall, see how many other things are now off.
(4) Keep the power off to that area. See if any other lights in the house or apartment are flickering. If not, that's good. It's just that one circuit. You could have the lighting switched to its own circuit if it's that bad. If they are you may want to call an electrician to check the ground to the panel and all connections in the panel, not just the one breaker.



That does brings us to the question.... Is this a house you own or do you rent? If you are renting, you should call the Landlord or management company to get a resolution to this problem.

Answer 5

Not the circuit breaker. Loose connection in the light circuit somewhere. Or perhaps just 1 defective bulb in the series would give a distracting illusion that all the lights flicker. Change all bulbs first. If that dont work, turn off PWR and check each JCT. box above fixtures for a loose connection.
And if all else fails; put in some diff colored light bulbs and enjoy the show. :-)
Good luck and take care.

Answer 6

That is troublesome thing to track down as connection from main box go thru wall outlets in which wire is twisted and a twist-on covers the wires.

See if the bath and hall are on the same breaker and what else might be on that breaker. Then go to the nearest wall outlet to the main breaker and plug in a lamp on that circuit watching if it too blinks. If not continue with those wall outlet boxes until you locate the culpret. Then remove the coverplate, the outlet and check those twist ons in that box.

Answer 7

I would first try changing the bulbs. If it still does that, it sounds like it is "arcing" someplace. In otherwords jumping from point to point to complete the connection. Try changing the light switch with one from another room. If you still have the problem, go to the breaker box and flick the switch for that room off and on. See if that corrects it? You know which part to replace if it fixes it. Otherwise you got a break in the wiring and that would take an electrician to find it.

Answer 8

If you can here a clicking sound as they flicker it could be a short.
What kind of lights are they? Fluorescent?
In any case start by changing the light bulbs, if that doesn't work call an electrician.

The only good thing about messing with electricity is that it will let you know you are Still Alive, maybe.

Answer 9

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Answer 10

Get an electrician. YA isn't the place to diagnose an electrical problem. I get it looked at soon though. It could be a number of things.