Light flickering and turning itself off? Any electricians out there pls?

waterwatereverywhere

Hi

Hope someone electrically minded can help...

We have a light in our hallway which keeps flickering on and off and has just turned itself off, even though the switch is still on.

It is on a two-way switch, so it can be turned on and/or off from the downstairs hall switch or the upstairs landing switch.

Please does anyone know what could be causing this to happen? All other lights in the house are fine.

A few months ago we changed both the light fitting and the switch at the wall but haven't had any problems with the light until now so assume everything was wired up okay. We followed the existing wiring when changing the switch and light and everything has worked fine up til now.

Frightened to use it now....so would be really indebted for any help on this.

Thank you!

keith969

When it is flickering, listen carefully by the switch and also by the light itself. Chances are that if its a loose connection, you will hear a noise as the connection arcs.

27col

It is almost certainly a bad connection in the light fitting or the switch that you changed. Recheck your work.

Ed_Jogg

Are you using a low-energy bulb? (For a hallway you probably should be by now!)

Although these usually 'just stop working', they can fail in interesting ways. We had one which would switch itself off for a while (tens of minutes, sometimes), and may be do this a few times of an evening, at random intervals, then not for several days. Eventually I think I got fed up and replaced it!

If a change of bulb doesn't fix it, re-check your work!

(BTW -- We had randomly flickering lights upstairs for a while. Couldn't work out why until the whole lot stopped working and I traced it to a loose connection in the upstairs lighting feed from the consumer unit -- at a junction box jammed hard under the airing cupboard floor. It must have been dislodged/stretched when we had the central heating upgraded some months earlier!)

ManAtHome

If it's a screw-in bulb, may just need a tighten-up.

For a bayonet fitting, could be one of the spring plungers in the light fitting sticking.

waterwatereverywhere

Hi

Thanks everyone. Will look at this tomorrow as too dark now to switch power off.

It's not an energy saving bulb (yet!!) though after what you say, Ed Jogg, perhaps we won't put one in after all - I didn't know they did weird things like that!

The only thing I can think is I was dusting the shade recently-ish (no I don't have OCD, we were sanding and making a dusty mess everywhere, LOL) and maybe something was slightly loose and the movement made it worse.

When you say a "bad connection" do you mean we might have put a wire in the wrong place or it might be just loose? Dead worried now. We simply followed the wiring as it was when we removed the old light and the old switch.

If the wires were in the wrong place would it just not work at all or blow a fuse rather than doing what it is doing now?

ManAtHome

Bad connection is likely to be a loose wire (retaining screw not tight enough) or possibly pushed in too far so the screw is gripping the insulation rather than the wire.

charlysez

my lounge ceiling light did this too, so i replaced it with a new one and now thats doing it too......... just paid for a new junction board to be fitted on the safe side and nothing is tripping. the light went out earlier and then after an hour came back on. maybe its more whooooooooooooooo!!!

keystone

bungle4x4 wrote: »

a loose wire will cause arcing and heat. its very very dangerous. double check all of your connections. if you see burning, then replace the unit.

if you continue to struggle, you need a spark.

Pun intended?

Cheers

Ed_Jogg

waterwatereverywhere wrote: »

It's not an energy saving bulb (yet!!) though after what you say, Ed Jogg, perhaps we won't put one in after all - I didn't know they did weird things like that!

We've been using energy-saving bulbs for years and that was the only one that has done anything particularly weird. Usually you find that they just don't turn on one day. This is in contrast to an incandescent bulb which can 'blow' quite spectacularly at switch on.

Energy saving bulbs give the best savings for lights that are left on for long periods, such as hall lights. In our previous house, a 'modern' 70's terrace design, the bathroom was in the middle with no window, and the living room was so dark we had to have a light on whenever we used it! In those early days a 100W equivalent cost about £15 and weighed half a kilogram!

As ManAtHome said, 'loose connection' is either a screw that has worked loose, or a wire that is not quite in the right place to be held properly by the screw. Have confidence in what you've already done, connection-wise, and re-check it all methodically. Lighting circuits are pretty simple things and if you'd connected it wrong it simply wouldn't work (or would stay on all the time). Don't forget to check the switch that you didn't change -- that may well have a loose screw! I found several like this in fittings when we moved in.