If you have a sink that's draining slowly, you can probably live with it for a little while before getting it fixed, but when the lights are flickering, you'd better take action.

What follows are a few common electrical problems and inconvenient situations that need a quick response — as well as advice on what they mean. Most of the time, it's safer to call in a licensed and experienced electrician.

If the lights start flickering or dimming, don't assume that it's just because the wind is blowing outside. It could be the result of loose connections or other problems in a switch, receptacle/outlet or your electrical panel. The panel is the box in the garage or on the side of your house. If the flickering happens when large appliances turn off and on, like your air-conditioner or dishwasher, a repair person may need to check out the appliance. If an electrician can't find the problem pretty quickly, don't start redoing all the wiring in the house because it might be a situation your utility company has to solve in its transmission equipment.

If you moved into an older home that lacks enough electrical outlets for your kitchen, home office or elsewhere, don't use extension cords back-to-back or piggyback on surge-protector strips to solve your problem. That extension-cord trick can overload the circuit for the room and cause electrical problems or even a fire. You can add outlets and maybe even a dedicated circuit in your electrical panel to solve the problem, according to Jon Bolenbaugh of the Mighty Electricians in the Valley. The cost can vary, but may be about $200 per outlet and $400 or more for a circuit.

Don't assume that your electrical panel will last forever. The entire panel can burn out; they don't last forever. The breakers can overheat and damage the panel. The extreme hot and cold in much of Arizona is partly responsible. But the good news is that the panel can be replaced. If the size of your panel is inadequate, it can also be expanded to provide new circuits. An electrician can refurbish your old panel to give it a longer life.

You are buying a house built in the 1970s, and the home inspector tells you that the house has outmoded aluminum wiring.

Although this is not a good situation, an experienced electrician can do some retrofitting. The problem is that aluminum can corrode when it comes in contact with copper connections in light fixtures. But special wire nuts can be used on fixtures to prevent that. You also need to make sure any replacement switches and outlets/receptacles are labeled aluminum-compatible.

Your older home has outlets/receptacles that will let you plug in only two-pronged devices. That means your outlets are not grounded and have no way to safely conduct any stray current that escapes from the wires. Don't use adapters to fit three-pronged plugs into a two-prong receptacle; you could burn out the appliance that way. You need to have an electrician replace your outlets with three-pronged versions. Another problem that needs correcting is when a plug keeps falling out of an outlet/receptacle. That indicates there are loose contacts that could start a fire, so replace the receptacle as soon as possible.

Your house was built before the 1980s, and your kitchen, bathrooms and outdoor receptacles don't have ground fault circuit interrupters (GFCI outlets). These are the types of outlets that save you from electrocution in baths and kitchens. A GFCI monitors the current flowing into an appliance like a hair dryer. If it should fall into water, for example, it trips the circuit and shuts the power down in that outlet and sometimes the outlets in other bathrooms and the kitchen. If this is the situation in your home, you need to replace your old outlets in those spaces. Some homeowners do this themselves if they are experienced in electrical repairs.

Be careful with the wattage on lightbulbs. If a manufacturer recommends a particular wattage for a lamp or a fixture, don't stick in a bulb with more watts. The bulb's extra heat can scorch or melt the socket and insulation on the fixture's wires and may lead to an electrical fire.

Something you can do yourself: relabel the circuit breakers on your electric panel. In most older homes, a few marks or labels have been scratched on the panel. Often the labels are nearly unreadable. The best way to fix this is to have two people on cellphones — one inside the house and one outside. Turn on all appliances and lights in the house; then the person at the panel turns off the circuit breakers one by one, and the person in the house can report on what areas go dead. Or you can turn off all the breakers at once and turn them on one by one. If you are looking for which breaker controls a specific outlet, you'll have to plug a lamp into that outlet for your testing.

As you work, draw a sketch of the box and indicate which breaker serves what appliances and what areas. Later, you can label the individual circuits on the box, but there will be only a small space to write on. Use the sketch to post more details. Keep the sketch in a convenient place, or maybe post it inside the front door of the service panel. After your service panel is labeled, you will know how to turn off the power in a particular area and will also be better able to identify which areas of your home are having an electrical problem when you have to reset a circuit breaker.

Next week: We'll talk about great new outdoor-grilling and -cooking products we saw at the National Hardware Show in Las Vegas recently.

For more do-it-yourself tips, go to rosieonthehouse.com. An Arizo­na homebuilding and remodeling industry expert for 25 years, Romero is the host of the syndi­cated Rosie on the House radio program heard in Phoenix on KTAR-FM (92.3) from 8 to 11 a.m. Saturdays. Reach him at 888-767-4348.

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