When we bought our house a few years ago, we replaced a chandelier light in the living room with a ceiling fan. This weekend, I finally got around to installing a light kit on the fan. That went smoothly except that when the CFLs that came with the light kit are turned off, they flicker dimly. I have checked the connections between the wires and, though I could be persuaded otherwise, I am pretty confident a loose wire is not the problem.
The fan isn’t controlled by a pull chain but instead came with a four button box with which I replaced the light switch at the same time we installed the fan. The electrical box only had one white and one black wire coming out of it. I understand that new construction would possibly have two black wires to control the fan. This house is 100 years old and didn’t even have a ground wire in this electrical box. Connecting those wires to the control box seemed to work fine.
Unlike the fan, the light kit does have a pull chain. In addition to that, there is a power button on the fan control box in the wall. Finally, there is also a button in that box that turns the light on or off. All three of these switches/buttons need to be on for the lights to be on. Both the power button and the pull chain appear to function as physical switches: when they are set to their on or off state, they will stay that way until a person changes them. The light button is not. If the lights are on and the power button is pushed, the lights (and the fan) turn off. If the power button is pushed again, the lights do not turn on but do flicker. At that point, hitting the light button will turn them on.
To be clear, the lights flicker in this state only:
chain: on
power: on
light button: off
From what I’ve read online, it appears likely that replacing the CFLs with LEDs or incandescents will probably stop the flickering. I’m wondering, though, if the flickering is evidence of something unsafe.