Help With Downstairs Lighting

[skuba]

We've recently started to suffer from a strange lighting fault in our house downstairs. We have a downstairs toilet, entrance hall, living room, dining room, kitchen, and utility room. They are all standard single bulbs with the exception of the dining room which has a 3 bulb light fitting. When we turn on the lights in the living room and/or the dining room, they often flicker for a few seconds before working properly. None of the other lights downstairs seem to suffer from this problem. They are all on the same circuit because when I pull out the fuse it kills all the lights downstairs

Any ideas what might be causing this?

Thanks

 

[clamb02]

I'm no expert but sounds like a simple wiring fault. The lights that flicker will no doubt be part of the same circuit. If you feel confident enough, I would start with checking the wiring on each of the flickering ceiling light fittings. If that doesn't help it sounds like a job for a sparky.

Good luck.

C

 

[holmslaw]

..

 

[skuba]

Sounds like a loose connection and is potentially dangerous.

It needs to be fixed ASAP.

do you mean a dodgy connection to a switch? or a lighting unit?

what's the risks involved?

thanks

 

[riveralt]

Sounds like a loose connection and is potentially dangerous.

It needs to be fixed ASAP.

do you mean a dodgy connection to a switch? or a lighting unit?

It could be both.

what's the risks involved?

thanks

Just make sure that the circuit is dead before you go near it.
Start with the switch and make sure none of the conductors are loose.
If they are okay then check that the ceiling rose conductors are tight.
If they are okay then check that the pendant conductors are tight.

If all these are okay then you may have a faulty lamp - I have assumed that when you say standard bulb you mean an incandescent bulb and not an energy saver or halogen bulb.

 

[clamb02]

Sounds like a loose connection and is potentially dangerous.

It needs to be fixed ASAP.

do you mean a dodgy connection to a switch? or a lighting unit?

what's the risks involved?

thanks

Loose connection = spark = risk of fire

As both of your lights are flickering, its more likely to be the light fitting rather than a faulty switch, as they will be part of the same circuit.

 

[skuba]

to be specific, the lighting downstairs is like this:
toilet - 1 switch, single bulb
hall - 1 switch, single bulb
living room - 2 switches, 3 bulbs in a fancy light fitting
living room - 1 switch, 1 bulb (separate light)
dining room - 1 switch, 3 bulbs in a fancy light fitting
kitchen - 1 switch, tube light
utility room - 1 switch, 1 bulb

when i say '1 bulb' i mean a single light fitting with a standard or energy saving bulb. sorry, i'm not very clued up on the lighting terminology

would you advise that i pull the fuse and check all the switches, then all the light fittings, then call a sparky if i don't find anything out of place?

thanks for your help

 

[riveralt]

If you have energy saving bulbs and they are flickering it could be the bulb that is going.
From your posts you don't really sound confident enough to start poking around the wires in the switches and ceiling rose so you might want to start by replacing the bulbs that are flickering and see if that cures your problem.

 

[skuba]

If you have energy saving bulbs and they are flickering it could be the bulb that is going.
From your posts you don't really sound confident enough to start poking around the wires in the switches and ceiling rose so you might want to start by replacing the bulbs that are flickering and see if that cures your problem.

i'm quite confident enough to take a look at the wiring, i'm just not very good with terminology! it's not a bulb problem, unless a faulty bulb in one room can cause lights to flicker in the other

 

[riveralt]

Okay then follow the instructions/order I outlined above.

 

[skuba]

Okay then follow the instructions/order I outlined above.

thanks

it's actually my mother's house. i popped round on my lunch today and had a quick look to see what's happening. there was a loose wire in the 3 bulb light fitting in the living room so i decided to disconnect it and start from scratch to make sure everything is hooked up properly. at the moment the wires are disconnected as shown in the picture below. i'm pretty sure the light fitting in the dining room takes it's power from the living room (in the picture). can someone confirm how to best connect up the wires?...

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Connect them up as they were connected before.

Surely you had the sense to make a note before you disconnected them?

 

[skuba]

Connect them up as they were connected before.

Surely you had the sense to make a note before you disconnected them?

i didn't actually disconnect the fitting, i simplified the story for the forum post. i didn't realise i would be questioned! the fact is, the fitting is disconnected and i'm pretty sure this would be a very simple conundrum for an electrician to answer. i could have a good guess at it myself! i'm just trying to make sure i do it properly. all i'm trying to do is check the basics to save mother forking if it's something simple

 

[ban-all-sheds]

So it was already disconnected, and with it disconnected the other lights all worked and there was the flickering problem?

 

[skuba]

I'll try to explain…

All the light fittings were in place when she noticed the living room light flicker one day when she turned it on. This happened from either of the 2 switches in the living room. She then noticed the dining room light started to flicker as well. In both rooms, sometimes you can flick the switch and the bulb will just sit there for 5 seconds, then suddenly light up. The next time it will try to light up straight away but flicker for a few seconds. The next time it will just work fine. This happens when using regular bulbs (not energy saving ones). Both of these rooms have 3 bulb light fittings. The problem doesn't seem to happen in the other downstairs rooms with single bulb light fittings (or if it does, it's that infrequent it's gone un-noticed)

Because the living room seemed to be where the problem started, she assumed she had a faulty light fitting, and a family friend disconnected it. He replaced it with a single light fitting to simplify things and to narrow down the problem. However, the flickering still occurs in the living room (with a single bulb) and in the dining room (with the original 3 bulb fitting). As it did not appear to be at fault, I advised that we re-fit the 3 bulb light fitting in the living room, so she's pulled the fuse and disconnected all the cables, leaving me with the wires shown in the previous picture

Basically, all I want to do is check all of the downstairs light switches and fittings to ensure it's nothing obvious, then she can phone an electrician. But in order to do that, I need to reconnect the 3 bulb fitting in the living room

Hope that makes sense

Thanks