2007-09-06 07:06:00 · 7 answers · asked by Danathefly 2 in Home & Garden ➔ Maintenance & Repairs
1. You have a bad main fuse
2. one side of a breaker went bad or tripped with-out the other side as it should have.
the dim lights are on the phase that is being back-fed through the water heater element
Hope this helps.
Note: this is only a guess with-out doing a service call.
Your best and safest option would be call an electrician
be-careful taking advice from DYI's
2007-09-08 02:54:06 · answer #1 · answered by greg w 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Assuming you are located in the US, your residential breaker box gets it's input from a 240VAC center-tapped transformer provided by your power company. The center tap part is important to your problem since only "some" of your lights are dim and not "all" of your lights. when you combine that with the fact that your AC does not work at all because typically AC devices run at the full 240VAC provided to your house.
It is my guess that one side of this 240VAC transformer has failed and you are getting less than full voltage out of that branch. You can check this very easy with an AC voltmeter on any one of the DIM lights to see just how bad the problem is. Since you have to call the power company to replace their transformer anyway, then perhaps that would be the best starting point for this problem. Good luck
2007-09-06 15:20:44 · answer #2 · answered by Rick A 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Call your electric company. Sounds like your house isn't getting enough electrical power. Also, if your power is running low, you'll want to unplug your refrigerator or else it could burn up. Running a refrigerator on too little power makes it overheat.
2007-09-06 14:14:01 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Sounds like a "brownout" contact your electric company and see if you are affected. If not then you have a low voltage problem, and need to get an electrician to look at it and find the reason.
2007-09-06 14:14:45 · answer #4 · answered by Cedaar 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Most likely cause....low voltage. Have your power co. come out and check using a meter that checks your in-coming voltage for 24 hrs.
2007-09-06 14:25:07 · answer #5 · answered by Warloc7 1 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Could be a poorly connected neutral wire. I've had this happen, and the wire was just barely making contact in the panel box.
2007-09-06 14:18:01 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
sounds like a brown out, call the power co,
2007-09-06 14:14:04 · answer #7 · answered by William B 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋