Who knows this could be endemic all over the hose and the guy just thinks its normal to have some lights get brighter and some get dimmer every time he turned the old on on.
Had one like that last week. POCO neutral had obviously been on the way out, or been loose for some time from what I could tell be a breif interview of the guy. Lights had been doing the hokey pokey since he bought the house last year... (Home Inspectors said it was normal.... - I did a little experiment with dimming/raising some as an example - far from normal!) Anyway the guy gets a new plasma, and DVD - and a new dryer for himself for X-mas. He tells me as he is taking a break in his first movie on the thing, he throws some clothes in the new dryer - comes back out and the DVD and plasma are on fire.... He calls the cable company to complain.... They tell him to call an Electrician - he calls us - we tell him to shut off the main and we'll be there shortly - he calls back after fifteen minutes to cancel saying his neighbor has the same problem.... The guy turns his main back on to find out how to contact Comcast - blows up his computer.... (This is after warning the guy to keep the power off - numb-nuts still thinks it has to do with his cable line, as his neighbors TV also caught fire.) Smarter neighbor calls PG&E - they get there and fix the lost neutral - and find that his hacked together main panel has no bond - tell him to call an electrician - he calls back, and I go out there to find all 2-wire circuits - including the gas dryer - Carpenters doing foundation work had moved the water bond to a painted portion of pipe - no rods - but there was a bond at the main.... Turns out PG&E is buying TV's and other crap for most of the block.
