One specific light causing all lights in house to flicker

[hotrod]

Checking for loose wires, or thinking "I'll try giving it a clean and a drop of oil" etc are not, in even an unimaginably microscopic way, "specialist activities".

BAS, you only have that mindset because you spend so much time on here. That's cool, that's your interest, I'm not knocking that, but 99.99% of the population spend their time doing *other* things.

If you were to take a step back and see it from a novice/DIYers perspective you would realise it wasn't *obvious*. I don't want to labour the point and get into a big debate with you over this anyway.

 

[bernardgreen]

Bernard, you are very wrong.

I am correct.

Checking for loose wires, or thinking "I'll try giving it a clean and a drop of oil" etc are not, in even an unimaginably microscopic way, "specialist activities".

They are to people who have no concept of how mechanical things work or the courage to attempt to meddle with things mechanical.

They are basic, fundamental, and should be as-natural-as-breathing activites.

I agree but many people are too busy with other activity to have time to learn these activities

If not then you're one of the people who does not have a DIY bone in his body.

There are people, many of them, who do not have a DIY bone and prefer to take advantage of the services avialable from food at the supermarket to main dealer car workshops and taxis for those who cannot get the hang of how to use a car. ( car users, car drivers and motorists are three very different things ).

I am very DIY boned. Built an entire house with just my wife as co-worker. The only work we didn't do was the brick chimney and the battens and slates on the roof. It is a Walter Segal designed house, ideal for self builders.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

They are to people who have no concept of how mechanical things work or the courage to attempt to meddle with things mechanical.

That's exactly what I'm saying.

People like that are not going to have any of the skills, ingenuity, problem-solving ability, manipulative skills, tactile feedback sensitivity etc etc etc to be doing any DIY.

I agree but many people are too busy with other activity to have time to learn these activities

So you agree that these skills, and the underlying attitudes, are basic and fundamental.

You agree that some people don't have them.

But you don't agree that people who lack them should eschew DIY.

How strange.

 

[bernardgreen]

What I am saying is that many of those asking for advice on this forum are coming into DIY for probably the first time and are trying to resolve a problem that for various reasons they need solve by DIY activity.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

And what I'm saying is that if they have got to home-owning adulthood without ever having had the time, interest, or innate ability to acquire or nurture those fundamental skills and attitudes, if they have got to home-owning adulthood without becoming the sort of person to whom it is blindingly obvious to think "flickering lights, I'll check for loose wires" then it's far too late to acquire those skills, to acquire that attitude etc.

Yes, it's experience, but it's experience of a several years- or decades-long generic skills nature.

You don't need to have ever looked behind a light switch - that's not the sort of experience you need. But if you have not become the sort of person whose first thought is to have a look to see if there's anything loose then you'll never become that sort.

 

[hotrod]

I am correct.

You most certainly are bernard .

 

[ban-all-sheds]

So neither of you get it.