Why do my lights keep flickering?
A couple of lights in the flat flicker now and then, and one LED downlight flickers a lot. Is this just cheap bulbs, or something I should worry about?
3 answers
Depends whether it's one light or all of them:
One light flickering: - Loose bulb — reseat it. - LED on a dimmer not rated for LEDs — very common; use a trailing-edge LED dimmer or a non-dim circuit. - Failing LED driver — the bulb/fitting is on its way out; replace it.
Several/all lights flickering, especially when big appliances switch on: - A brief dip when an AC/heater starts can be normal, but persistent whole-home flicker can mean a loose neutral or poor connection at the DB — checked promptly by an electrician, since loose connections overheat.
So: single light = usually bulb/dimmer/driver (fairly DIY). Whole home = get it looked at.
The dimmer thing was mine — swapped to an LED-compatible dimmer and the flicker stopped completely.
One to add for anyone landing here: *flickering* (the light dipping or stuttering while it's on) is a different thing from a faint glow when the switch is OFF. If yours glow when they should be off, that's usually an illuminated switch, a leaky dimmer or — the one actually worth checking — a switched neutral, and it's covered in a separate thread on LED downlights glowing when switched off. Flicker-when-on and glow-when-off have different causes, so it's worth knowing which one you've actually got before you start swapping bulbs.
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