Flickering LED room lights in a new house my son is having built.

Idlerjn · Mar 24, 2023

My son is having a new house built. The electrical wiring is almost complete but a problem has been detected. Some of the rooms LED lights flicker when lights in other rooms on other circuits are switched on or off. His electrician has not been able to find the problem. Some lights are on dimmer switches and some are not. Where dimmer switches are used, they are the recommended dimmer switches for the light. Here's an example; when lights are on in the laundry room and garage, and then the garage lights are turned off, the laundry room lights flicker. The same scenario exists in other areas of the house. In another room in the house, the lights are on for awhile then start flicking on there own. These same lights, when test wired into my home circuits operate properly. Is there a commonly known wiring mistake or defect that can cause these symptoms? Could comingling of neutral wires of different circuits cause this problem? I will add that the electricians apprentice has done some of this wiring. Everyone has to start somewhere but I'm sure mistakes are sometimes made. Thanks for any advice or insight you could give us.

littlespark · Mar 24, 2023

I would suspect incompatibility between dimmerswitch and lamps before apprentice error. They are only doing as they are told, after all. I am not discounting it completely though.

Have the dimmer switch replaced with a regular switch, and see if the problem corrects itself... Then, it must be the dimmer.

Not every LED lamp is dimmable, and not every dimmer switch works with every lamp. It is a case of trial and error.

Midwest · Mar 25, 2023

And perhaps just poor quality lamps? LED lamps don't take much power to cause them to illuminate or flicker, even though its light switch is in off position. A circuit 'snubber' can sometimes help if flickering occurs, with switch turned on.

Idlerjn · Mar 25, 2023

Some extra information on the situation:
He is using Lutron Maestro MACL-153M and MA-PRO dimmers which are what the disc light manufacturer recommend as the preferred dimmer. Some of the affected circuits involve these dimmers but some do not - i.e. when both his garage lights and laundry room lights are on, turning OFF the garage lights will cause the laundry lights to start flickering, even though neither of them involve a dimmer switch. The pantry light and basement light will just start flickering at random while the lights are on, and neither of them involve dimmer switches. The only constant is that it is only the disc lights that flicker and none of the other LED light fixtures.
Also, I tried connecting these disc lights up at my house to see if they did the same thing. Dimmer switch or not, I cannot replicate the problem at my house. So I'm not sure if it's the discs or if it's the wiring (maybe a fault in the neutral wiring, but then, why at so many places in the house? There are 20 disc lights in the house and we've seen nearly all of them flicker or do other very weird things.
Thanks for the help.