Why are all my house lights flickering?
Random light flickering often starts mildly when appliances run, but can escalate into severe flashing across multiple rooms even when everything in the house is turned off. In other cases, lights in newer homes suddenly start blinking in repetitive patterns simultaneously, ruling out simple explanations like bad individual bulbs.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Replacing LED bulbs with regular non-LED bulbs
- 2Checking the circuit and electrical panel
- 3Contacting the utility company to check for a loose neutral connection
- 4replacing the bulbs
- 5pressing the switch on and off repeatedly until it clicks right
- 6flipping multiple wall switches in a sequence
- 7Buying a 0-10V dimmer and running low-voltage wire (such as 18/2 thermostat wire) separately from the dimmer to the lights
- 8Replacing standard recessed bulbs with pancake LED surface mount downlight fixtures
In their words
Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.
“It used to do very lightly when the washer or dryer were on. It’s now a disco club in their rooms with everything off.”source ↗
“Those light panels require commercial dimmers with a 1-10 volt output signal, not a standard residential power dimmer.”source ↗
“My recessed lights are flickering. I replaced the bulbs and no fix. Replaced the dimmer switch and no fix.”source ↗
“I have a new build house (2023), the lights in my house will randomly lightly flicker in a pattern, blinking twice in succession with breaks in between.”source ↗
“It’s been fine for the past 10 months. What are the chances all 16 bulbs between two rooms would cause this ?”source ↗
“Lately, we've taken to running around like musical chairs hitting all the switches until one finally works OR having to sit there at one switch and press it on & off over and over until it clicks just right and it turns on.”source ↗
“If it's left clicked "on" at night, but they haven't actually turned on, you can see a faint orange-y glow in all three of them.”source ↗
“The switch they’re going into was already a dimmer but it doesn’t seem to really dim correctly. Just flickers.”source ↗