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Posted by dpb on February 11, 2007, 11:07 am
On Feb 11, 1:25 am, twillia...@rogers.com wrote:
> ...had ... random flickering of lights.
> ...[not] all circuits but consistenly affects the same
> circuit breakers...[and] moving the hot wire to a
> different breaker the flickering on a particular circuit...stop[s].
> Had an electrician in who checked the fuse panel connections and found
> nothing there. The utility co. came twice to check their connection up
> to the meter and it all looks good.
...
OK, you've isolated it to a few specific circuits and pretty
conclusively shown it to be neutral-side related as the symptoms were
alleviated by moving the "hot".
It is also pretty conclusive that it isn't the feed to the main panel
as the symptoms are isolated to individual circuits as well -- a feed
neutral problem would affect the whole house, not individual circuits
and I'd put pretty high confidence in the utility company finding
something in two visits if it were theirs.
...
> one of the kitchen split plug circuits was not wired in the same
> manner. The first plug had the red wire connected to the top
> receptacle and black to the bottom. Neutral pigtailed to the other
> side with the tab still present. The 2nd plug on that circuit had the
> red wire connected to the bottom receptacle and the black to the top.
> I reversed the wires on the 2nd plug to make it consistent with the
> first. Didn't really expect it to solve my problem but since then
> there has been no flickering on any circuits. ...
This makes no sense to me as described -- that would seem to have put
two "hots" of different circuits on the same receptacle which would
have either put 240V on the outlet if fed from opposite buss or made a
dead short if the same side when breakers on. Unless one or the other
of the red or black isn't a feed but just a traveler cable and changed
wire colors -- possible, but would wonder why on an outlet? These
switched and split outlets, I presume? Maybe I'm reading your
description wrong, but something seems peculiar.
As for the flickering apparently being resolved by the above action,
I'm guessing if it is, the supposition you made of fixing a poor
neutral connection was the problem.
I'd continue on these circuits checking connections at all locations
for good connections, particularly if any of them were wired initially
w/ the "backstab" terminations or if any of this is aluminum wiring.
If the latter, I'd get the electrician back and ask for inspection by
a pro of the quality/condition of connections.
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