My parents live in a house that was built in 1898 and just this past week the lights on just one circuit started flickering. Dad replaced the breaker and nothing changed.Sounds to me like a loose ground. any easy ideas on where to start as you can not see where the wires are going. I checked all the conections in the panel which has been upgraded to 200 amp breaker box. About half the lights in the house run off the one breaker. I can’t seem to find the first fixture in line. any ideas?
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Replies
start at the easist place,call the elec co. to have them check the ground on the pole. thats what happened at my place after i had screwed around for several hours trying to find the problem. larry
if a man speaks in the forest,and there's not a woman to hear him,is he still wrong?
A GROUND has nothing to do with this.
There are a number of different GROUNDS, but in normal operation none of them carry any current.
You have a bad connection is one of the current carrying conductors. That could be a hot or a neutral.
"About half the lights in the house run off the one breaker."
Normally you would look at this and see if it is limited to one circuit than it is problem on that circuit at the breaker or downstream.
If it is on multiple circuits then it is a problem at the main breaker through to the meter to the transformer.
However, with that many lights on one circuit it can be either.
Do the lights ever flicker BRIGHTER are just dim?
Do you have a voltmeter?
What "kind of flickering" is this. How continous is it?
I would try to ID everthing that is on that circuit. Then when you have a problem see if it is showing up on all lights are only some.
Then the problem is at that light or the feed to it from the upstream light and/or switch.
With a newer service and apparently much older wiring inside the house without any more clues my guess is that the the problem is downstream.
Since the breaker was just replaced and you did not mention any corrosion or burning on the bus that is not the problem area. But what about the neutral connection at the panel for that circuit?
There are some specialized tester that can "help" trace circuits, but no guarantee.
Basically you need to just start breaking the circuit and see what is up stream and downstream from that point and move to a point upstream and break the circuit at that point.
.
A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
IMO what you should be looking for is loose connections of all types;hot, neutral and ground where it exists. You say that about half the lights run off of one breaker. This concerns me , a 200 amp system is in place, which , in a proper rewire ,would have several breakers share the load. Was the house rewired, or just a bigger panel installed? If the later applies i would look for knob and tube wiring as well as any aluminum wiring that was popular in the 1970's. Up here (canadian,eh) knob and tube must be replaced when found. Aluminum requires rated fixtures because of corrosion problems.
In most residential services the circuit powers a combination of lights and outlets....so your loose wiring may not be with the light fixtures.
To track what lights/plugs are on this circuit, turn on every light in the house. Then, go to the panel and turn off every breaker, except the one with the flickering lights. Any lights still on (flickering or not) must be powered by the breaker. The circuit may also be powering plugs as well, so check all plugs with a voltage ticker. Mark every item with some masking tape. Turn all the breakers back on, then turn the questionable breaker off.
Go back upstairs and inspect every item you marked for loose connections (double check with voltage ticker before proceeding)
Hopefully, this will solve the mystery.
toolman65
In Ottawa, I was allowed to leave some knob and tube circuits in use but they had to be protected with a blank face ground fault. It seemed to be a judgement call at the discretion of the inspector.
OBviously you have a poltergeist.
that's what I thought ....
haunted house....
time to call the sci-fi channel....
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->
WOW!!! What a Ride!Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
Thanks guys .I'm sure it's a loose connection of some sort and the circuit it is on is knob and tube.the only knob and tube left in the house. 10 yrs ago we remodeled a large part of the house and ran new wiring. looks like we may have to rewire this as well. Was hoping to find the problem in an obvious spot which doesn't appear likely to happen.
mike
I had a similar problem in a trailer.
An outlet ahead of the lights had stab in connections that were going bad.
Could be stab connections in a switch.
Just taking a stab at it. LOL
Rich
I had problems in the past with the sodered Knob and tube connections failing due to heat. Perhaps one of your sodered connections is just loose. Tracing the circuit , as Bill suggested, should make it easy to know where to look. Presumeably your problem is close to the location of the original panel. It would be great if you could rectify the problem, ensure safety and then be able to rewire at leisure.
Was hoping to find the problem in an obvious spot...
Well alrighty then.
1. Look at the circuit neutral connection in the panel. Re-make the connection at the neutral terminal bar. Sometimes the conductor breaks inside the wire insulation, you can't see it but it causes an intermittant open and the flickering. Sometimes the terminal screw looks tight, and feels tight, but it's not. Remove the neutral wire, cut it back and strip it, make up the connection fresh.
2. Check the busbar where the circuit breaker clips on. Installing a new breaker won't change anything if the stab on the bus is pitted or eroded or cracked.
3. Look at the first box in the circuit, it's the receptacle outlet at the base of the stairs near the powder room. It's a loose neutral in a stab-in terminal. You asked for the obvious fix, thought I'd make a SWAG.
No luck yet?
4. Go to the last place you'd think to look. The problem is probably right there. A bad splice, or termination. You can save a lot of time and effort if you think it through and simply go direct to the last place/thing you'd suspect to be the cause.
But seriously--one way short of re-wiring is to use the rule of halves.
Figure out what's on the circuit. Use the assumption that stuff is strung out roughly in sequence from closest device or fixture to furthest. At the approximate halfway point, open the circuit--both the hot and neutral. See if the first half of the circuit still flickers. If it does, the problem is in the first section. Divide that section in half and see of the problem stays or goes. Repeat to narrow down the location of the problem. Keep in mind that there may be more than one problem causing the symptom.
Sometimes an intermittant open at a receptacle or switch can be found by pounding on the wall around the device and looking for flickering or flat-out loss of power. Watch out for what's behind a wall you pound on. It's a bummer to be pounding on a wall and have stuff on a shelf on the other side of the wall fall off and break.
Good luck.
Cliff
Have the utility co check out the possibility of a loose neutral at the pole.
Jeff
Bite the bullet. replace the knob and tube before you go from a flickering problem to a fire. IMO it is only a matter of time before insurance companies demand knob and tube be replaced or face higher premiums anyway.
knob and tube is outlawed for a reason....it simply isn't safe...the older it gets,the more dangerous it becomes.
Eventually your parents will move out. Any new owner will want that wiring changed. Do it now and avoid the hassle of trying to get an electrician to do a rewire 5 days before closing.
toolman 65
Actually K&T wiring is outlawed by the 2005 NEC."ARTICLE 394 Concealed Knob-and-Tube Wiring
I. General
394.1 Scope
This article covers the use, installation, and construction specifications of concealed
knob-and-tube wiring.
394.2 Definition
Concealed Knob-and-Tube Wiring. A wiring method using knobs, tubes, and flexible
nonmetallic tubing for the protection and support of single insulated conductors.II. Installation
394.10 Uses Permitted
Concealed knob-and-tube wiring shall be permitted to be installed in the hollow spaces of
walls and ceilings or in unfinished attics and roof spaces as provided by 394.23 only as
follows:
(1) For extensions of existing installations
(2) Elsewhere by special permission...".
.
A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
Doesn't sound outlawed to me! But I am surprised that it is still allowed to be installed!