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I live in a mobile home and recently changed the switches in living room 2 double gang boxes (they are weird enclosed ones with metal slats that pinch the wires).

One wire got loose, so the switch to an outlet wasn’t working. After replacing the first set of 2 switches, with regular switches, Lights to the fan started flickering.

I thought I needed to complete changing out the other set of 2 switches ( they are side by side btw) because something was wrong. Lights flickered but wasn’t too crazy.

A month went by and I recently had time to replace those pending switches and when I did, all hell broke loose. The lights and all outlets to the living room started flickering and the fridge, the kitchen island outlets, some lights in bedrooms flicker too and vent hood started flickering,,started turning off for a Few seconds, for no apparent reason.

Sometimes only the appliances are on and sometimes when the fridge starts up it starts flickering and powering off completely or just fainting enough to reset appliances. (Worried my fridge will die with unstable current)

& call me crazy but(I did notice that when airplanes go by or we walk in different areas - haven’t pin pointed exactly where- and the house moves sometimes the whole light show starts)

The electrician came to check the wiring on the switches I changed, everything was good, he did tighten one that had gotten loose. Problems persisted. he changed the breakers to the problem areas and did see one breaker was not completely in, but new breaker is installed nicely and rest of breakers as well. Problems persisted not as bad but still flickering.

Changed out outlet for fridge ( the weird old style as well- found some wires were loose) problem diminished in frequency but still when it gets crazy it starts with flickering, on-off power and or fainting but powering fully again.

Called the park and they said meter outs looks Good but I don’t know what else to check. Electrician says he’s going to go under the house to see if something is up with the cables underneath, But wondering what you think?

I read in other posts maybe the meter and to call Power co but the Park says it only comes if we have no power at all

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Anyone with experience please help or if it sounds familiar can help!! All I want for Christmas is steady electric power at home…

Pictures are from switch taken out of the wall. I replaced it with regular ones that tighten with screws.

Power to house is 120v

Things stabilized the day after electrician came. I do remember him pulling the power cable from the switch box. He said in case something was making a bad contact. But it still made the flickering. It was overnight it went back to normal.

It’s been 10 days since I’ve had issues with the lights and outlets flickering. It had stopped as I mentioned above, but today it started up again 😖. Could it be a meter problem? All connections were checked by electrician and were corrected. I read in other posts similar to mine about a neutral problem? Any help please. I’m calling The Poco January 2nd since we are in New Year’s Day!!! (Typing at 3:45 am …)

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    Hi Zui, first, would you please edit it into small sentences and paragraphs. No one is going to read it as is. Planes overhead aren't going to affect your power. Walking causing issues may be loose or broken wires/connections.
    – Rohit Gupta
    Commented Dec 20, 2023 at 11:16
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    Please edit this to include some formatting! Also, add some pictures of the wiring, especially the "weird enclosed ones with metal slats that pinch the wires" as that does seem weird. Take your time and focus on one thing at a time here and work through it logically. If you try to tackle the whole shebang at once, you'll go crazy.
    – FreeMan
    Commented Dec 20, 2023 at 12:02
  • Thanks for your answers, and sorry I don’t know the formatting style here. I added a picture of the back of the weird switch. Also after electrician left lights we’re still flickering, but over night things stabilized, I didn’t hear appliances resetting and yesterday was the first day everything was completely normal!! So weird!!!
    – Zui King
    Commented Dec 21, 2023 at 18:45
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    "the house moves sometimes the whole light show starts" That there's your problem. Somewhere or other there are loose connections and movement is causing connections to make/break causing things to flicker. It could be as serious as the feed to your meter and/or main panel (which would definitely be a PoCo issue!), or it could be loose connections somewhere within the house. Double check EVERY inside wiring connection, starting with the ones you've most recently touched.
    – FreeMan
    Commented Dec 21, 2023 at 18:46
  • Can you please add one more pic - of where that switch goes. It strikes me as really odd to have the switch with cable attached to it outside the wall. Of course, I know nothing of mobile home wiring other than that it's different than stationary home wiring. How did you get all that cable out of the wall to have the switch in your hand?
    – FreeMan
    Commented Dec 21, 2023 at 18:48

2 Answers 2

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It turns out it was the meter. The Mobile Home Park Management should have sent their electricians to check it and didn't.

The meter had a corroded part and the electricians came, sanded the part, which might be a leg or phase, and after that it's been back to normal.

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  • What is "the Park"?
    – isherwood
    Commented Jan 9 at 21:50
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There is a loose connection most likely where you've just worked on it. Cut power and recheck, tighten it up should be all that's needed.

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