Be Excellent To Each Other

Before I call a sparky, I thought I'd put this out to you people on here. Chances are there's someone on here who knows more about electrics than I do!

About 9 months ago, the lights in my flat started flickering and a buzzing noise could be heard coming from around the lights (or possibly from the breaker boxes, not sure). The problem seemed worst when new load was added to the electrical system - a new light being switched on would send already-on lights into flickering mode for example.

I asked my brother, who was an electrical engineer, to take a look at it and he hypothesised that it was just some dust or something similar in the breakers that was shorting the connection a bit. He had a bit of a fiddle and the problem was solved.

Only now it's come back. It's very, very sporadic. Last night was the first time it had happened in a while, and seemed to be worst when lights were switched on and off. Tonight it's done it occasionally, just a couple of times and for a second or two at a time. The difference tonight is that it did it even though I'd not added any new load to the electrics.

Any ideas as to what might be causing it? As I live in a block of flats, could it be people in the flats around me using too much electricity and they're causing mine to short out?

Your brother's still probably right. Where's the fusebox? Does it have a cover?

Fusebox is on the wall just to the left of me and yes, it has a cover.

Are next door vacuuming?

Have you checked the reverberating cabrination units? What about the reinforced lode housings? They're always the first bit to go.

It's something to do with flux, I expect.

he's right, if it's all the lights and other things beside, the fault must be in the fusebox, either a faulty breaker or a loose terminal connecting to it. Take the lid off and prod the wiring around the top of the breakers with a plastic implement until you find the loose bit. It could actually be the live busbar at the bottom being loose. If that's ok, wiggle the breaker switches (the main one and the lighting one) to see if it's the actual breaker.

One other thing could be the main fuse holder (where the supply comes in) and you are not meant to mess with that but wiggling it might still help diagnose where the fault it.

Remember you are doing this with it switched on so be extremely careful not to touch any exposed metal parts. If you don't feel confident to do it then keep out and pay an electrician. It sounds like potentially a fire risk so don't leave it.

I'd be going straight back to the original theory since it worked once. Presumably it had a cover the first time dust got in there too.

It won't be "dust" because the breakers are sealed. And it won't be "shorting" or something would have blown up and never worked again. But otherwise, yes.

He's not posted for a while! could he have started to lick the cables?

I'll have a goosey at it all tonight then. Where did I put those forks?

Reverse the polarity, that always seems to work on the telly.

Turn off all the fuses and then turn them back on one by one until all the lights you require are working.

Anything still off when you've got everything working is probably something unimportant like a heating duct extraction fan that you wouldn't really need anyway.

just through a bucket of water in it! should short (sort) something out!

haha! boom! boom!