We've lived in a home for 20 years that was built in 1970. It has aluminum wiring. Over the years we have a consistent problem with a kitchen light in the middle of the ceiling browning out after we turn it on. It turns on just fine and a few seconds later it dims and then goes back to full light. It might never do it again or it might repeat this. We've been unable to establish a pattern.
We've been all over the house and exterior trying to tie that particular behavior with appliances turning on or off, the washer changing cycles or something and can't. We've had three separate electricians try to diagnose and fix the problem but they keep trying to say that it's a general brownout of the neighborhood when it clearly is not.
We've changed the switches in the kitchen and elsewhere and "pigtailed" the switches. I'm imagining that if there were a danger of fire we would have had one by now so I'm assuming this is not a clearly unsafe condition. One neighbor suggested that if there one non-aluminum line on a circuit that this might be the source. Someone had added some wiring before we bought the house. Does this make any sense or can you suggest another direction to look?