Lights dim on occasion

Actually, it sounds like a dirty external power supply problem, unless it's just in the basement, in which case, I have no good ideas. I'm in a house that eats light bulbs.

Pay attention when the lights dim the next few times. Is there something that is turning itself on in your house? The fridge? Electric Hot water heater? Furnace?

Usually lights dimming is because something else has kicked on that is drawing heavy current and you get a momentary volatge drop everywhere in the house. Depending on the quality of the utility's lines it may even happen if something kicks on in your neighbors house.

If you can track it down to something else kicking on in your own house you can isolate that item to it's own feed from the breaker box which may help.

turns out my latest dimming was due to some type of explosion in NJ. So I guess I'll just keep an eye on things again.
thanks for your suggestions

make sure your feeds in your panel are tight and not corroded. Make sure you dont have a loose nuetral in any plug or light ect ect on that curcuit- sometimes that can be alot of lights and plugs. But in my experience your lights are on the same leg in your panel as your AC or Cooking Range, or some other monster type appliance(computers are very hard on nuetrals). Switch your lights breaker with the same size breaker of lets say- plugs and see if it changes. Hope this isnt to confusing- its not coming out as easily as I was thinking it.

ddogdbp

PS I realize that most ac and ranges are 240V- 2 hots and most homes are single phase 240- 2 hots. why switch em if it will still be on the same hots?????? Load Balance---- Nuetral picks up the unbalanced load- Hence the quick dimming during high unbalanced load. Loose nuetral=heat=resistance.