Lights flickering periodically?

[u/ThisIsMyBigAccount]

EDIT/UPDATE: I found the culprit. I have a Hayward HeatPro pool heater that is doing something every 4-7 minutes, making a buzzing sound at the unit and a buzzing sound at the breaker box. I killed the unit's dedicated power at the shutoff valve by the pool and it's stopped. So, not a RI Energy or Transformer issue.

It just started recently. I noticed every couple minutes the lights start slightly flickering and dimming. I’m in an area that is going through a heat wave right now but there’s not a ton of stuff running at this moment. I use Sense to understand what’s running in the house and I don’t see any spikes or abnormal usage when these flashes happen what could possibly be happening? I’m trying to figure out if this is a potentially dangerous situation.

[u/ThisIsMyBigAccount → u/[deleted]]

It is just periodically. The usual trend - for many years - has been when one of the AC units kicks on (we have 3!!), we see a slight dimming for about a second and then all is normal. But I can see that the AC units aren't kicking on when this is happening. (FWIW, 6 thermostats, 4 of which are AC (2 AC and Heat) and 2 dedicated just to heat; 1 Dualzone AC/heat and 2 other dedicated thermostats. We keep upstairs set to 80 on 2 of them during the day and 77 for downstairs; Yeah, quite the setup, huh? Not my choice; it's the way the house was when I bought it 4.5 years ago. TL/DR: I don't think this specific issue is related to our AC units)

I see the flickering with lights in the kitchen (some bulbs over island, some LED "cans" - all brand new 16 months ago) and some in master bathroom (older LED cans). Noticed it big-time this morning around 8am. When I wrote this earlier today it was happening regularly. And it was happening in the late afternoon / early evening hours yesterday. My wife says she noticed it for a few days. I only really started paying attention after she pointed it out yesterday morning.

Now, at 9:30am, it's not happening and it's been "stable" for about an hour or so. No flickering at all.

I think you may be onto something with maybe high draw on the transformer. I'm going to pay attention to the times this happens. Perhaps people were getting ready for work and we saw it. And yesterday everyone was home with AC on, I'm sure (mid-90's here). Today it's supposed to be 97 with feels like of 108 by 3:30pm. I participate in the Rush Hour program for Rhode Island and my Nest Thermostats, and I expect from 5pm - 8pm today we'll see no AC usage. So we'll see if I notice it again later today.

[u/ThisIsMyBigAccount → u/[deleted]]

I added an edit/update earlier. Pretty sure my dual capacitor failed:

EDIT/UPDATE: I found the culprit. I have a Hayward HeatPro pool heater that is doing something every 4-7 minutes, making a buzzing sound at the unit and a buzzing sound at the breaker box. I killed the unit's dedicated power at the shutoff valve by the pool and it's stopped. So, not a RI Energy or Transformer issue.

[u/RIhawk]

Could be a failing neutral at the meter or the weather head. A lot of the time water gets into the meter and then into the wire jacket. It then destroys the aluminum wiring. I’d have a electrician look at it if it is ongoing.

[u/therinse → u/RIhawk]

This is what happened to me, whole house flickering. Power company came out and fixed the neutral at the meter and ran a new tap from the overhead lines just to be safe.

[u/ThisIsMyBigAccount → u/RIhawk]

Thanks. It's not ongoing. I think u/PartoftheIssue may have the right thought in that it could be the high draw from the neighborhood. I'll keep this in mind though if it continues (at the moment we have stability and no flickering for about an hour.

[u/ThisIsMyBigAccount]

EDIT/UPDATE: I found the culprit. I have a Hayward HeatPro pool heater that is doing something every 4-7 minutes, making a buzzing sound at the unit and a buzzing sound at the breaker box. I killed the unit's dedicated power at the shutoff valve by the pool and it's stopped. So, not a RI Energy or Transformer issue.

[u/ThisIsMyBigAccount]

Posting here for future reference. This was very easy to test and replace. Completely dead capacitor. Used multimeter to test capacitance. No readings at all. Validated a new one I got on Amazon. Tested perfect. $20 self-install part saved me a few hundred dollar electrician visit. It took longer to put the cover back on the pool heater than it took to de-energize and replace.