Lights flicker and things shut off randomly :(

[Abouthadit]

Ok the electrician showed up , first thing he wanted to do was check the panel, coarse he worked on the city side for about 30 minutes (he use to work for the city) He checked what he could, removed the main wires coming in , tightened the panel brackets that hold the main wires, then he removed a few breakers and then removed the main breaker 100/100 and the contacts were rough pitted as in had arced ?
He called the city and one of the guys that he trained showed up and he took off the meter and checked the contacts behind it and they were good.
He replaced the main 100/100 breaker and put everything back together, I came inside turned all the lights on and started up the WM , the lights didn't dim/flicker at all.
So far so good , hopefully that did it !

 

[Jadnashua]

Constant heating/cooling of the electrical contacts as the load changes can cause them to lose spring tension - this is much worse when approaching the max load. WHen that happens, they can arc. A CB generally is designed to trip with a sustained overload - the duration depends on the specific one installed. You may be nearing the max load on your panel and 100A is no longer adequate. This may happen again. Over the years, a house originally built with few electrical/electronic devices adds things like a bigger WH, dryer, fancy stove with more and higher wattage burners, central air, and the list goes on. You might consider adding up the things that generally could run at the same time to see where you stand. It might be time to budget for upgrading your service. Then again, maybe not.

 

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[Abouthadit]

Yeah he had mentioned that it would be wise for in the not to distant future to upgrade and put a new panel in...