My friend has a ceiling fan in his office where the lights will flicker violently on occasion and have a small flicker often. He has had 3 different fans in and he flicker continues. The circuit only contains this ceiling fan and one other ceiling fan in another room, but only one fan has the flickering. I have checked all the connections, changed the switch, metered out the volts at each connection and checked the continuity of the cable between the switch and the fan. Everything reads fine and is tightly connected. He has since told me the problem only occurs when there are CFL bulbs in the fixture and not when he puts incandescent bulbs in. The fixture is rated for four 40w bulbs and he is using 23w CFLs. He has tried using different CFL bulbs, but the problem persists. Any ideas on what is causing this or how to fix it? Thanks.

Unless the CFL bulbs are listed for use in the fan, that's your problem.

CFL bulbs may not be able to handle the vibrations from the fan motor.

The flickering happens whether the fan is running or not. Also, sometimes it is only one bulb that flickers and the other 3 are fine, but when the bad bulb is removed the other 3 start flickering violently. Multiple brands of bulbs and different sizes between the two brands. The fan is a Lowe's Harbor Breeze if that helps any. Thanks.

CFLs are to blame for sure. Just use regular 40W incandescent; or if you are wishing to save energy, Lowe's sells halogen bulbs that use 28 watts but have a 40 watt output, they work just like incandescent and are cheap.

That's what we decided to go with when we couldn't find any problems in the circuit. He wanted more light than the 40w bulbs, but he may just need to add a lamp or two or maybe look into the halogen. Thank you.

Okay, just curious as to why you agree with Kyle's post and fuss at my answer.

They were the same answer!

Just picking on you for the fun of it!