Lightbulb Problem - Call Electrician or Exorist?

Factual Questions
1

How many dopers (happy 420 btw, not that you’re that type of doper…oh nevermind) does it take to help change my lightbulb?

In my bedroom I have three lights (I think they might be halogen if that matters), one of which seems to be posessed by spirits from beyond the grave. It has an annoying tendency to turn itself on and off for no apparent reason. I believe all three bulbs have been replaced within the couple months and are securely in place. Should I replace the bulb that randomly goes off or do I have wiring problem?

2

Need a bit more detail here to give a realistic answer:

  • are all 3 bulbs in a single fixture, or are they different fixtures/lamps around the room?
  • are all 3 controlled by one switch, or are they on separate on-off switches?
  • when the one goes off, what do you do to get it back on again? Do you find that the switch has gone from on to off, or is the switch still on, but the light has gone out?
3
  • all three bulbs are in a single fixture (that was really dumb of me to leave out, oops)
  • all three are controlled by one switch
  • when one goes off, it will stay off for a few minutes and then go back on, the switch remains in the ‘on’ position during that time.
4

Best WAG - either the bulb socket or the wiring has a high resistance junction problem. If there is some spot in the electrical circuit for that bulb which isn’t making very good contact with the rest of the circuit, it will heat up from the current passing through it. If this spot happens to be at a junction (most likely), then the heating will cause expansion of the conductors, which could cause them to lose contact with each other until they cool back down. Common junctions in your fixture would be where the base of the bulb meets the socket or where the house wiring is spliced to the socket wiring. The splices are especially suspicious as there will be 4 wires under a single wire nut for each side of the circuit. It’s pretty easy for one of those wires to be only loosely connected.

If this is the case, it needs to be remedied sooner rather than later as it will only get worse. This junction is not intended to be a switch, so every time the light goes off and on it will arc, pitting the contact surfaces which will increase the junction resistance and lead to greater heating. Eventuallly it will get hot enough to burn the insulation off of the wires and potentially cause a fire in your fixture.

So, if you have absolutely no electrical experience and no desire to gain any, call an electrician. And meanwhile, remove that bulb to reduce the danger.

5

oooh, aaaah, thats gotta be the most thorough, logically analyzed WAG ever, thank you Rhubarb. Surprisingly interesting too.

6

How many Dopers does it take to change a light bulb? Eleven.

One to change the bulb.

One to say that that’s the incorrect way to do it.

One to ask for a cite.

Two to argue whether it’s ‘light bulb’ or ‘lightbulb’.

One to link to a column by Cecil.

And 4 to argue about whether ‘light bulb’ jokes are inherently racist.

7

And one to point out that’s only ten dopers.

8

Yeaa! You win the cupcake.

9

Hey, as long as there are so many knowledgable people in this thread on the matter of possessed light sockets, here’s one that I’ll take the liberty of piggy backing onto this one…

I would like the driveway spotlight over my garage to work. I have found the cord that runs thought the garage wall, and its plug was lying on a rafter near a socket. the socket is connected in a nightmare morass of do-it-yourself electrical work that a previous owner (reputed to be an unbalanced handyman) put up. In its unplugged state, the light is obviously never on. If I plug the cord into the socket, I can turn it on with the switch on the wall at the back of my garage. However, I can’t turn it off with the switch. I flipped and flipped, but the light remained on. So I unplugged it.And the light stayed on! I tried it on two separate occasions, just to make sure I wasn’t going crazy.

There’s no timer or continuous power supply wired in unless it’s embedded in the wall.

Any thoughts?

10

Frankly, I’d tear it all out and rewire it, following proper code.

This is just too crazy to leave it there in the walls of your property. Get rid of it!

Since it’s a garage, rewiring is likely to be less of a problem than in a finished house.

11

I think you should first attempt an exorcism with a flask of holy water and insulated boots.

12

Set an unbalanced handyman to catch an unbalanced handyman, I always say.

Here’s how I would have done it. The plug is not the power source for the light - obviously, since the light stays powered with the cord unplugged. Rather it is control voltage for a delay-on-break time delay relay. The cord is meant to be connected to some momentary contact device like a motion sensor. When the sensor triggers the control voltage, the relay in the light is energized and remains so until the delay period expires, which could be anywhere from a minute to an hour or more.

Chances are that he had a motion sensor in place of the normal switch now installed and took it with him when he moved.

Having said all that, I second T-Bonham’s motion to rip it out and start over. It’s generally easier than trying to figure out someone else’s mess. Not to mention safer.

13

I got a new fixture yet the issue persists, I’d love to fix it myself but google isn’t too helpful in pointing me in the direction of what I might need to do…