Light flickers when first turned on

I have a light in a WC that flickers when first turned on if it has not been used for a few hours. I thought it was a bulb on the way out but this has been going on for weeks. Any idea why?

 

Hi Steve,

Is the light a halogen, LED or a light globe in a batten bayonet fitting?

Flickering lights should be resolved by your sparky as soon as possible as the intermittent circuit connection can cause big transient spikes that can damage dimmers.

Halogen MR16 bulb sockets can get intermittent and start to heat/blacken the pins with arcing if the contact is not good. If it is a halogen with an electronic 'transformer', a possible cause is a dry joint where the screw connector modules solder to the internal board inside the module. I resolder the ones in my house which take about 1 minute, but your sparky will likely just replace the inexpensive halogen transformer with a new one.

If is it a batten with standard bulb in it, the bayonet socket screw connectors to the inbound TPS line probably need checking/re-terminating as does the connection at the dimmer end.

If it is LED, it may be caused by insufficient initial current for your particular retrofitted LED driver as the dimmer ramps up to full output.

After those more likely things are checked, it could still be a faulty channel on the dimmer.

Good luck finding your problem.

Brad