My shop electrical is firmer than my house. Lights blink when the frig fires up.

[JRouche]

Hmm.? Something to look at? Lights shouldn't flicker but they do.

Not an old frig either. Year and a half.

I did snipe into one of the existing lines in the wall. An unused bedroom.

Seems it is on the sockets for the living room also.

Not an issue right? So the lamps slightly flicker. Not something to look at??
JR

[old mart]

You might try shutting down the house supply, and check out the sockets one by one for loose wiring connections. And any electrical boxes/fuse/breaker boxes. Check each time with a multimeter for safety's sake.

[dave_r]

I had flickering lights and poorly functioning appliances because the neutral from the power pole had become disconnected. I'm pretty sure it caused some significant distress in a bunch of electronic devices (killed the motherboard on my laptop, microwave, a toaster, some external hard drives).

I would suggest figuring it, as if it is a similar problem as mine, it results in much more that 110V being sent to 110V devices (not the full 220V, but I measured over 150V, depending on what happened to be turned on, on each side of the circuit break panel).

[reggie_obe]

Is the main panel in the shop and the house is fed from a sub-panel? Or just one breaker panel that feeds everything?
All rooms in house experience flickering lights?
Are the lights in the shop all on one circuit?

[michigan doug]

My house also started experiencing electrical weirdness, and the neighbor had dropped a tree limb on my feed, damaging the neutral.

[Mike279]

Isolate the circuit and check all the outlets along the way. If you have the old style of outlets where the wire is pushed in you may have an issue there. I would move the wire to the screw connection on any I found. A relatives house had an issue with the neutral wire coming loose in one. Easy to find as the outlet was burnt from the arcing. Mike

[J Tiers]

If the house and the shop are on the same service, shop tapped off the house breaker box, and nothing in the shop (120V stuff) makes the lights flicker, then the drop line to the house is probably not an issue. (220V stuff does not use the neutral, and so usually does not cause a neutral related flicker)

Same if only SOME lights flicker, or only SOME loads cause a flicker.

Sounds like it is blinking on "some" lights, but not others. Correct? Not correct?

First thing... go to electrical box, tighten up all the screws in the grounding and neutral bars. Could just be loose there.

Another possible problem, if it seems to be just the fridge, and just some lights, is that there is a loose neutral or other connection somewhere on the line that serves the 'fridge. If you just tapped into a line somewhere to get the fridge outlet, then that line is the suspect one, OR you may have tapped in near the end, and the fridge just has a large starting surge, which is causing excess voltage drop. In that case, move the outlet to a kitchen circuit.

The 'fridge, etc should be on a separate line that serves either just the fridge, or is one of the required kitchen-only circuits. Tapping into a random handy circuit is not exactly kosher. Kitchens are supposed to have a couple circuits that only serve the kitchen, for counter top stuff and 'fridge. That is per code, section 210-52.
"In the kitchen, pantry,
breakfast room, dining room, or similar area of a dwelling
unit, the two or more 20-ampere small-appliance branch
circuits required by 210.11(C)(1) shall serve all wa]] and
floor receptacle outlets covered by 210.52(A), all countertop
outlets covered by 21 0.52(C), and receptacle outlets for
refrigeration equipment.
The two or more small-appliance
branch circuits .... shall have no
other outlets."

[lakeside53]

The compressor motor startup surge is just momentarily dropping the voltage to the lights. Bedroom circuits were often 14awg and lights were on the same circuits (dumb, but cheap). Add in crappy push-in receptacle chaining and you can have even more issues.

As Jerry points out you are supposed to have a dedicated circuits; at least use one that doesn't have lighting on it.

[PStechPaul]

You might try using a heavy duty extension cord on the fridge, and try it on other outlets. However, the additional impedance of the extension cord might reduce the starting surge so the voltage drop is less and maybe not noticeable. A bad neutral may be indicated if the lights are on an opposite leg of the 120/240, and they flash brighter.

[JRouche]

Thanks for all the replies.

The main is a 220A box and my garage sub comes off of that through a 100A breaker.

The only lamp that flickers when the compressor comes on is a small side table lamp that I assumed wasnt even on the breaker that the frig is on cause I tapped into another rooms wiring.

Its is a receptacle I put in just for the frig and its all tied in correctly with a proper gauge romex.

It is a Pardee home so knowing their build quality I could see them spreading the load too thin.

Its not really a big deal just odd. I have never had a diminishing supply before I bought this frig. It might be a current hog when it starts up. Thanks again. JR

[chipmaker4130]

If you have the old style of outlets where the wire is pushed in . . .

Don't ignore this. How old is your house? Do you have any of these worthless outlets? I've fixed at least 25 of these connections over the years (in different homes) and one of them had nearly started a fire. If you have them, it is worth your time and a small amount of cash to change all of them out.

If you've ever taken one of these apart and looked at how contact is made, you'll wonder why they were ever allowed in the first place.

[TonyRV2]

Its the surge current from the fridge compressor motor that of course is revealing the wiring problem that you have, most likely a loose connection somewhere. Ideally a connection should have zero resistance...none do, but they can come close with just a few thousandths of an ohm of resistance. A poor connection can have several ohms of resistance, and in the worse case vibrations can make it look like a switch that is rapidly turning on and off...connecting and disconnecting. It takes electrical pressure (voltage) to push current through a resistance. Its similar in concept to having a pressure drop in a line that carried water where ever there's a restriction. The resistance is like the restriction in the water line, the current is like the flow rate, and the voltage the pressure. By Ohm's law, the voltage dropped by a resistance will equal current times resistance. So lets say your compressor motor draws 12 amps at startup...could be more, could be less, but this is a close approximation. Let also go on to say that you have a connection in that circuit that appears as just 2 ohms of resistance. By ohm's law, that connection will drop 2 ohms times 12 amps....24 volts. Right there you've lost about 20% of your voltage!! And 2 ohms is not much.

The first and easiest thing to do is to check all of the connections, including grounds and neutrals, in your homes distribution panel. The main lugs are going to be hot unless the meter is removed so extreme caution must be exercised here. You can turn your mains off and tighten the others. You may want to consider hiring an electrician to do this especially if your nervous about dealing with electricity. However, it is very important that you check all of these connections because the other problem, besides voltage loss is that loose connections can get hot enough to start fires. This is nothing to take casually. And bear in mind that loose connection will only become looser with time. That 2 ohm connection we talked about will dissipate nearly 300 watts of power!! Imagine how hot a 300 watt lightbulb gets. Incidentally, power equals current times voltage or alternatively current squared times resistance, among other variations.

Many times, after tightening panel connections the problem is fixed, but if its not, then the problem is out at an outlet or light fixture somewhere. This can take a lot more time to run down, but its doable with patience. My suggestion is if your going to start pulling outlets out to check connections, and they're old ones, might as well replace them anyways...they're cheap enough to buy.

Good luck with this, and let us know what you find. Having taught electrical engineering for 32 years, I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have on the subject, just shoot me a pm.

...Tony

[GKman]

I'll take a giant step and disagree with J Tiers and others. If there is something wrong with with circuit our refrigerator is on I want to know about right away. Everybody does. Have it on the same circuit as the kitchen light. Had it that way when I used a 200 W incandescent (2 amps big deal) now tenths of amps with leds.

[J Tiers]

I'll take a giant step and disagree with J Tiers and others. ......

OK. You are not disagreeing with us..... no skin off our noses....

You are disagreeing with the NEC (National Electrical Code), which has the force of law in most parts of the US, so electrical inspections might be a small issue, even in unincorporated areas.. But that is for new installs.... old wiring is generally grandfathered unless truly unsafe.

[chipmaker4130]

. . .now tenths of amps with leds.

Hey, maybe that's the only problem. Did the flickering start when you switched to LED? Some LEDs have poor drivers with zero buffering and will flicker with even minor fluctuations of the line. They also have other quirks: My daughter installed good-quality LEDs in her entryway, and at night there was a soft, ghostly glow from that fixture with the lights off! Took me a full twenty minutes to figure out that her switches, which were illuminated via neon lamps, were letting enough current through to 'glow' the bulbs.

Funny thing was, the current was so small the neon lamps didn't light, and the LEDs didn't start glowing for a few seconds after being turned off either (while the capacitor in the lamp driver charged - these were Phillips LEDs, and they do have a buffer). This 'afterglow' was so slight you couldn't see it except when the room was very dark.