Flickering Light Trouble

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loose connection on the load side of the meter if the power company checked their end.
 
AA5112 said:
My lights flicker in my house until the a/c unit comes on and they stop. What could cause this? I had the power company check the service on the outside and they didn't find a problem.
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Although the symptoms are not a classic fit, it is possible that you have a compromised neutral connection to the service wires.
Or you may be missing one phase (L1 or L2 on the service connection and the lights are seeing a reduced voltage.
Have you measured the voltages coming out of the breaker panel to the lighting circuits?

Are the lights dim and flickering or are they full brightness flickering to off?

Correction: If there were a problem with L1 or L2 the A/C probably would not be working at all.
 
171103-1645 EDT
AA5112:

You probably don't have much in the line of test equipment. So I would do the following:

Get two 15 W incandescent bulbs (these are less bright, easier to look at, and have faster response than higher power bulbs), and connect one across each phase at the main breaker panel. Put the bulbs adjacent to each other so that you can simultaneously look at them.

If these flicker at the main panel, then the problem is in the main panel or before it.

If flickering occurs such that one gets brighter when the other gets dimmer, then there is a neutral problem.

If they both dim or brighten at the same time, then it would look more like a power company problem before the poke transformer. But if the simultanous change is in the same direction, then it can be caused by a home 240 V load coming on and off.

If the flickering is on only one phase at a time, then it can be caused by an internal changing 120 V load. Or wiring problem, bad connection, beforre the bulb, but it would not be a problem from the primary sidre of the pole transformer.

What is somewhat confusing is that the flickering goes away when the air conditioner is running. But a possible explanation is a loose connection but not very loose that heats up when the air conditioner is on thus making a better connection while the air conditioner is on.

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When the lights were flickering last night I put my meter on a outlet on one of the outlets in the house and the voltage was jumping from 112-126 volts. When the a/c kicked on the lights stopped flickering and the voltage jumped to 130 volts and stopped flickering. I pulled the a/c breaker and inspected it. When I put it back voltage was 122v and the lights weren't flickering, but this morning it was starting again. I'm hoping maybe it's the breaker. It's got me pulling my hair out.
 
AA5112 said:
My lights flicker in my house until the a/c unit comes on and they stop. What could cause this? I had the power company check the service on the outside and they didn't find a problem.
Click to expand...

AA5112 said:
When the lights were flickering last night I put my meter on a outlet on one of the outlets in the house and the voltage was jumping from 112-126 volts. When the a/c kicked on the lights stopped flickering and the voltage jumped to 130 volts and stopped flickering. I pulled the a/c breaker and inspected it. When I put it back voltage was 122v and the lights weren't flickering, but this morning it was starting again. I'm hoping maybe it's the breaker. It's got me pulling my hair out.
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I am also thinking it's a bad neutral.

I doubt that the 240V breaker going to the AC condensor has anything to do with it.

I would think that when the AC kicks on then the blower in the air handler also comes on and this causes the changes in the load. This blower is a 120V load.

Just because the power company didn't find a bad connection doesn't always mean there isn't one. I would open the panel and check the neutral connections just to start with.
 
retirede said:
If you L-L is 240 and one side measures 130, you have a neutral connection issue somewhere.
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I am inclined to agree with you but I do not see where he has given the L-L voltage.

OP: You need to do Gar’s test or beg/borrow/buy enough meters to check the two L-N voltages at the same time. 240V line to line should give you 120 L-N. 250 would be 125. As Retired indicated an elevated voltage on one and reduced voltage on the other L-N points to a neutral problem.
 
A retired engineer I know told me he became interested in electricity as a kid when the house they lived in had a similar problem. To "fix it" they turned on the oven. The fix would last several hours or days.

Turned out the POCO connection at one of the ungrounded conductors was bad. The oven load was causing enough arcing to wield the conductors back together, for a while, then it would start all over again.
 
I checked voltage at the panel and have 115v on one leg and 126v on the other. I did notice a sizzling sound at the meter base. It sounds like it might have been coming from the disconnect there. Every neutral connection I have checked looks good and is tight. With the main disconnect open I read 120v on both legs on the meter side.
 
AA5112 said:
I checked voltage at the panel and have 115v on one leg and 126v on the other. I did notice a sizzling sound at the meter base. It sounds like it might have been coming from the disconnect there. Every neutral connection I have checked looks good and is tight. With the main disconnect open I read 120v on both legs on the meter side.
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I take it the utility did not pull the meter to investigate?
 
Never said what voltage AC runs at. Some have assumed it is 240 volt with 120 volt indoor blower - which is common but not necessarily what everybody has either.

That said I am still with others in that you are likely looking for a bad neutral connection someplace.
 
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