Any electricians out here?

[daughtersrus]

I have a question.

Yesterday, we noticed that the lights in our entire house are flickering. The clocks, tvs, micro...are not resetting. All of the wiring in our subdivision is underground. I called our power company and they came out this morning (when I was at the doctor with my youngest DD). My older DD(18yo) was home. She said that they checked outside and didn't find any problems. He asked if it was just the lights or if we were having any problems with any of the major appliances. She told him no. He said that it has to be something inside of the house.

Yesterday, I was making a pot roast in the crockpot. Somehow the cord got stuck between the outside heating shell and the crock. I was home all day and didn't hear or smell anything but noticed about 2 hours later that the crockpot was cold and nothing in side had even started to cook. I checked and sure enough the cord melted and also melted the edge of the outside shell of the crockpot.

DH checked the circuit panel in the basement and can't see anything different. All of the wiring in our house is inside conduit (building code here).

Does anyone know if my crockpot mishap could cause the lights in the whole house to flicker?

DH is very mechanically inclined so I'm hoping that he will be able to repair the problem but he's not sure where he should start. He thought for sure that it would be an outside problem since it's not just one room.

DH is going out of town for a few days and I'm nervous that whatever the problem is, could start a fire.

Any ideas or suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[DznyLvr2005]

I'm not an electrician, but it sound like you may have a problem with the outside line
Oh but sorry, i just read your post again and read that the ouside lines were checked... Sorry, I can't figure it out, I wonder what it could be!?

 

[GeorgeG]

You need to have an electrician check your panel box for a loose or broken "neutral" connection. The "neutral" is the third leg of your service that balances the two "hot" legs. People often confuse it with a "ground," but even though the two are connected at some point, they serve two different functions. With an open or loose neutral, either inside or outside the house, voltage on the hot legs can go up and down to dangerous levels, one leg going up while the other goes down. This should be checked and repaired by a licensed electrician as soon as possible. Light bulbs will just burn out when the voltage gets too high, but 120 volt appliances can be damaged or ruined by the fluctuation in voltage.

 

[JR6ooo4]

concerning the melted cord on the croc pot, were the exposed wired touching each other, or connected together by each touching a metal edge of the pot?

Did the food cook at all, was the pot running for any amount of time?

If the insulation on the wires melted very slowly you could get an arc between the wires that might be a one time event. Or it might arc together with a very low current for a longer time period. I believe the extended shorting is what ccauses fires, and would also cause the lights to flicker. But it would also have to be a low enough current to not cause the breaker to throw or to burn a fuse.

Mikeeee

 

[daughtersrus]

concerning the melted cord on the croc pot, were the exposed wired touching each other, or connected together by each touching a metal edge of the pot?

Did the food cook at all, was the pot running for any amount of time?

If the insulation on the wires melted very slowly you could get an arc between the wires that might be a one time event. Or it might arc together with a very low current for a longer time period. I believe the extended shorting is what ccauses fires, and would also cause the lights to flicker. But it would also have to be a low enough current to not cause the breaker to throw or to burn a fuse.

Mikeeee

The cords was touching the rim of the crockpot in two separate spots about 3 inches apart but not touching together. Where they were up against the crockpot, the cord melted and there are two small holes in the rim of the crockpot at these points as well.

The food did not cook at all. I plugged it in about noon and realized at 3:00 that it wasn't working. The crock as cold as was the outer pot. Would this cause the lights in all of our rooms to still flicker?

I'm going to call a neighbor that is an electrician to see if he will come and take a look. I know that my DH doesn't like to "work" (he's an auto tech) after hours so I had hoped he could have fixed it himself.

Thank you all for the advice!

 

[Sinderelli]

This just happened to us a few weeks ao. The lights in our house were flickering like crazy. We also have underground wiring.

An electrician came and did something to the panel box (tightened something that was loose- sorry I do not know the technical terms). We live close to the airport, and he said it's common for the airplanes to loosen the connections.

Since then, no flickering!

 

[Par8hed]

Loose neutral or an overloaded service. Unless you just added additional load my bet is the loose neutral. Unless you are certain ehat you are doing, and I sense you are not, call a qualified and licensed electrician. It shouldn't be too big a financial hit.

 

[Buckalew11]

I just had this problem also!

On Wednesday morning I was cutting hair and the lights were flickering so much that it was like someone was at the light switch making it go up and down! Then, it stopped being that bad but it was still flickering.

Later that morning I was cutting this guy's hair from the city next to us electric company and he noticed my flickering lights right away.

He said if it was happening to my neighbors too that it was the city's problem. If it was just my house, then it was my problem. As he left my house he checked and called me back and said I had my own transformer and to call the city and get them to check it.
They came and checked and their end was fine.
So, we called an electrician who came out and I believe he did what GeorgeG said above and all has been fine since. No flickering for 2 days now. It was unbelievably cheap.

 

[daughtersrus]

We live close to the airport, and he said it's common for the airplanes to loosen the connections.

Since then, no flickering!

From the planes landing? Our backyard backs up to a very small semi-private airport. We occasionally will get small corp. jets but most are small private planes or news helicopters.

I haven't noticed the flickering for a few hours now.

 

[Sinderelli]

Yes, the vibration from the planes taking off and landing caused it. We live close to Armstrong International (N.O.) so there are many planes taking off and landing daily.