Lights flickering

bristol_pilot

I have replaced the incandescant bulbs in my hallway and landing lights with energy efficient bulbs. Since doing so, these lights flicker on a bit whilst turned off. (They illuminate normally when switched on). What could this mean? Is there a fault with the switch? Could the switch have been put in the neutral wire instead of the live? This is a mid-1960s house that has never been re-wired. Any ideas? I guess the new bulbs must be getting their electricity from somewhere.

27col

Probably something as simple as a dodgy switch. That would be my first port of call.

Owain_Moneysaver

See this.
In exceptional cases a CFL will flash occasionally when switched off. This is due to wiring capacitance passing a tiny current, which gradually charges the CFL's reservoir capacitor, and after a while it attempts to start, giving a momentary flicker.

andrew-b

Yes it's nothing to worry about and doesn't mean bad wiring. I'm sure i posted on here about this a year or so ago. We had new energy saving fittings with 4 pin bulbs . During a lightning storm we had turned the lights off to watch the lightning. The lights kept flashing in time to the lightning..not particularly brightly but enough to be visible.

DVardysShadow

Owain_Moneysaver wrote: »

See this.
In exceptional cases a CFL will flash occasionally when switched off. This is due to wiring capacitance passing a tiny current, which gradually charges the CFL's reservoir capacitor, and after a while it attempts to start, giving a momentary flicker.

From the article

2 conditions tend to cause this:

• an especially long switch wire run
• supply switched on the neutral instead of live pole

Other than moving a neutral switch to the live line, possible solutions include:

2nd one is one to worry about