At least one other house on the transformer. I did some testing today, and I can't reliably cause the flickering no matter how much load, or what equipment I turn on. The flickering affects multiple circuits.
I did call the POCO today, and surprisingly they're rolling a truck out to check the lines. Makes me wonder if they got any other complaints if they sent a truck out no questions asked?
My local PoCO Co-op is the same way. They have several troubleshooters that drive around all day troubleshooting.
I have had several issues in the past and dispatcher has rolled troubleshooter out no questions asked.
Local non-profit government PoCo is awesome for that...
Not too much of a surprise. A loose neutral can burn your house down, and the only sign you may have in advance is a flickering.
yup
National Grid came by and checked everything. Load tested the meter base, checked the pole transformer. Got him to confirm that he saw the flickering too.
VTSoundman nailed it. It's the freaking coffee maker. I couldn't get the lights to flicker at all, then I noticed the Keurig had turned itself off when he disconnected the power. Sure enough, as soon as I started the Keurig up, the lights started flickering again once it finished heating. The stupid thing keeps itself hot 24/7, and it must pulse the heating elements rapidly to do it. I personally hate the damn thing for wasting power like that, but the women of this house practically worship the thing.
I'm going to investigate further and verify the main connections in the panel. I can't believe that little coffee maker uses enough power to make the lights in the entire house flicker like that.
Which model Keurig do you have?
I have had several different models and none of them kept water hot 24/7.
The latest model I have is a 525c bought from costco.
Had the fancier version of that before with the K-carafe...but it had issues... more on that below.
However, mine does not cause lights to flicker when I turn it on in the morning.
Something is wrong if that load is making the house flicker. I'd still check for neutral problems or back-stabbed outlets. My espresso machine is 1600W and doesn't cause my garage lights to flicker. It's a triac controlled heating element, and will pulse to maintain an even pressure in the boiler.
My keurig doesnt cause that either.
We have 2 keurig makers. One is like yours, manual. The other has an internal clock. The one with the internal clock has gone wonky 2wice now and I started to throw it away each time. However, after being unplugged for hours or days, the thing resets itself and works fine for months at a time.
Point being is that I think Keurigs are suspect. And the cups average 75 cents each. Time for a Mr. Coffee. Sorry for going OT.
My previous 2 keurigs bought from costco (think it was the K575 version with the Karafe) had issues with clock maintaining the time. That was the only issue. After a lot of digging online, I discovered a rather long thread on amazon of people complaining about the issue to keurig and Keurig issuing free replacement units to customers with very few questions asked.
Some of them replied back and said they came home to a brand new Keurig machine left on their porch by Fed-ex without any notice from Keurig.
Other customers didnt have as much luck getting through to corporate as its a different center that answers the phones.
But Keurig is pretty good with customer service and they HAVE acknowledged the issue. The new Keurig 2.0 was supposedly suppose to have a better chip in it. But it looks like mine is doing the same thing with being unable to keep the time.
Petty pitiful that Keurig cant find a chip in this day and age that can keep the time properly. We have devices that are far cheaper that keep the time like clock work...
I wouldnt have thrown them away if i were you. You couldve gotten a replacement unit..
So I looked into it more, and the Keurig has a 1.5 kW heating element. I'm still going to check the neutral connection, but I can definitely see 1.5 kW pulsing 10-20 times a second causing flickering.
Whats funny is that while my keurig (525c) doesnt cause the lights to flicker, my samsung laser printer does and its really bad. I can tell when the infuser is heating up because it pulses on and off repeatedly for 10 secs or so, causing the lights to flicker in a specific rhythm and pattern.
One of my office outlets must be bad because when my laser printer is plugged into certain outlets, it causes my battery backup to switch to battery and the logs show a brief loss of power. Im sure I have a back-stabbed outlet somewhere that cant handle the brief high current draw. Havent had time to find it so i just found an outlet that doesnt have the issue....
From what I can find online, this Keurigs are pretty unrepairable and pretty trouble-prone. I think the short-term solution will just be to put a timer on the machine.
yup. If you want i will see if i can find the thread on amazon reviews.
Instead of the timer, I would get a better model that doesnt constantly heat the water like mine. You can even program it to heat up at a certain time say 6am, so its ready for use when people get up in the morning.
I bought mine at costco(as i did with the previous 2 units that were the older model) so if i ever have an issue with it i can just return it no issue and no hassle.
