My lightbulbs blow much more often in this house than they used to in my last one. These are the regular indoor ceiling light fittings I am talking about, both Halogen and ‘standard’ bulbs. Over the last three weeks for instance, around 10 have gone (although this is extreme, usually I guess the rate is one a week).
I have ruled out (I think) the following:
Cheap bulbs - nope.
Light fittings - nope, it’s house-wide, all different types/ages of fitting.
Vibration, heat, humidity or other external physical factor - can’t see how.
Voltage irregularities - I have monitored the voltage over the last two weeks, it’s been within spec as far as I can tell.
My neighbours report no verifiable similar problems, although one did say he thought they blew ‘too often’!)
Could this be connected to the domestic supply in some way? In other words, could it be down to the consumer unit in my property? If so, how/why?
I have searched the threads on here as best as I can, and can’t see the answer to any similar question… anyone got any ideas? Personally, I reckon the kids get up in the night and go round the house knocking the bulbs with long poles…
I had a particular bulb in my old place that would blow pretty often. I eventually just replaced it with a ‘fluorescent bulb’ (same size as a regular bulb, screws right in), and that ballast-thingee seemed to take care of the problem. They are more expensive, but I suppose they use less electricity. Whatever, so long as I wasn’t replacing bulbs so quickly. I assume you can get those in the UK.
I have a similiar problem at my house. One thing I have noticed is that the bulbs almost always seem to “blow” when I’m turning the lights on. I can sometimes make them blow by trying to get the light switch to hover at that point where the light is about to be turned on or off, and then crossing that “threshold”. The light switches and wiring in this house are pretty old, so I guess the switches cause a surge right when they are about to turn on.
Does anyone have any brilliant ideas on how to prevent this?
It’s you. My ex-wife had an amazing knack for blowing lightbulbs. She would regularly turn on lights and the bulb would blow. Although she was only one of four people in the house, and turned on no more lights than anyone else, she had about 10 times as many bulbs blow on her as the rest of us combined. I guess I was replacing a bulb a week.
Brutus ; Well, it’s an idea… but I’d rather get to the bottom of the cause, not just treat the symptom, if you get me…
Mycroft Holmes ; Yep, there have been other threads and posts on this topic, it seems that bulbs generally (though not always) blow when being turned on, due to the stress on the element of the sudden heating I believe. Dimmer switches have been suggested to limit this effect.
don’t ask ; Nice theory but it happens to all of us in the house, not just me! (unless you are suggesting a genetic link? A bulb-blowing gene? )
Approximately a year ago I fitted a new light fitting in my kitchen. It consists of 4 Halogen Bulbs on a strip. These are GU10 bulbs (240V, 50W ) About a month ago, they all in turn, over a couple of days, blew. At first I thought it was a fault, but when looking for replacements I found that they appeared to have a “life”, because some were more expensive than others. Obviously the more expensive ones were the longer lasting. This might account for the Halogen bulbs, that’s what I put my ones down to anyway.
If so, you might have a bulb wattage too high and the heat is killing it (weakening it until you turn it on, then the surge zaps it). Regular bulbs don’t fare well in here under normal use, and bulbs made for this use don’t fare well when too big.
Fixtures where the bulb is upside are prone to heat building up and it’s better to go a little under the recommended output.
Fixtures on dimmers:
Are they on a dimmer? If so, then it’s possible you have cheap dimmer controls. Cheap dimmer controls zap bulbs. A dimmer turns the bulb on/off thousands of time a second, and crappy ones don’t do it well and fry bulbs.
Do any bulbs hum or buzz when they ARE working?
Fixtures recessed:
are they the right type? Are they butting against insulation causing heat to build up and shortening life?
I worked for a local electric company for 10 years, and we had this complaint, maybe once every three months.
It’s not voltage. To blow bulbs in a week, you would have to have 40% overvoltage. If that was the case, you’d be blowing Fridges and Stoves, too.
It’s nothing to do with your switches, sockets and stuff.
Here’s what it often is: Bulbs are made with a pretty hard “vacuum” inside. People buy a “club pack” with, say, 50 bulbs. As they get to the end of the pack, they are using the oldest bulbs, which have allowed air in, which fail quicker.
Try writing the date of install on the bulb and see how long they really last.
Oh: One more thing: Sometimes, it’s just “end of life” of the bulbs. You buy a new house, get, say, 20 new bulbs in. In a few years, the 20 original bulbs will all start to fail.
Many thanks for your ideas, they are most appreciated… this is driving me nuts! OK… to answer the points raised…
Vetch ; Thanks… but I have a mixture of Halogen lights/bulbs (in the kitchen ceiling for instance), and ‘traditional’ tungsten element (?) bulbs elsewhere. They all seem to exhibit the same short-life syndrome. I fitted the halogens in the kitchen precisely because of the trouble I was having with traditional bulbs there, it has made no apparent difference (except that the bulbs cost even more to replace!) I don’t doubt what you say about the ratio of cost to longevity, but I don’t think it’s connected with the problem I have. Philster ; The fittings in the house are a mix, most are the type where the bulb hangs from the ceiling in what we call here a ‘rose’ (and perhaps it is called this everywhere, I don’t know). Others though are in uplighters or even in fittings screwed directly onto a wall where the bulb is horizontal (in a cupboard, specifically). All the bulbs in all the fittings seem prone to the same short-lifespan problem. In the other houses I have owned I have never experienced any problems with short lifespan in ‘upside down’ fittings.
I haven’t exceeded the recommended wattage for any of the fittings so I don’t think this is an issue.
I have no dimmers anywhere in the house, so it’s not that.
None of the bulbs or fittings hum or buzz.
Very few of the fittings are recessed and those that are are all correctly fitted well clear of any obstructions. PhilAlex ; Voltage irregularities would, I would have thought, be far more damaging to a delicate filament like a lightbulb, wouldn’t you think? The cumulative effect of repeated slight over-voltage could, conceivably, weaken the filament? I don’t think this IS the cause however, as the voltages in the supply to the house don’t seem to be different from anywhere else I have monitored.
On your other point, I have never bought large packs of bulbs (although, economically there may be an argument that I SHOULD), so I don’t think the life of the bulb is an issue. I have bought the bulbs (which are of different types) from many different retailers, and by now I have replaced all the bulbs many times (I have been in the house 4 years now). It’s hard to be quantitative about this, as I have not been avidly monitoring the situation until recently… I just know that the rate of bulb-death is wayyyy higher here than anywhere else I have lived, and like I said in the OP, in the last three weeks I have lost 10 bulbs from 10 different fittings!
I have no knowledge about the UK, but here in the US where the usual household voltage is 120 volts, lamps are available in either 120v or 130v ratings. I had a similar problem with 120v lamps blowing fairly often. A change to 130v lamps has reduced that.
I have had similar problems, but it looks like all my theories have been covered. What I have noticed is two things. First bulbs that are on sliding dimmers (as opposed to the kind that you can click on and off and then rotate) seem to last much, MUCH longer. Isuspect this is because it avoids the sudden on/off surges.
The second thing is that bulbs in enclosed fixtures burn out faster because they get too hot. I’ve replaced those with the new twisty-flourescent types.
My son is watching me type this and wants me to add some smilies, so here goes :o :rolleyes: :mad: :eek: ;j :wally :smack: :dubious:
I might add that there is such a thing as industrial bulbs, easily available that are primarily used for troublelights, those lamps mechanics use when searching around under your car. Troublelights invariably are subjected to repeated falls which instantly fail as a result when normal incandescent bulbs are used.
I don’t know why they can’t be used for household purposes, but they sure are a hell of a lot tougher.
It took me a while to find but this is something that may help.
I’ve known about these things for many years but have no experience with them. In my search I read a post on another board that said the buttons heat up and fail. Don’t know if these are the same type he was referring to. I always thought the buttons slowed the initial voltage amount to the bulb to do away with the shock to the filament. These things actually convert the AC to pulsating DC. Light output appears to be about 1/2. But if all else fails they may be the solution.
For household purposes, bulbs advertized for garage door openers are made of a tougher filament (they are enclosed, mounted upside down and need to resist vibration).
How many light bulbs do you leave burning in the house, typically? The average US bulb only lasts for about 1000 hours (six weeks) of continuous use; if you had, say, 12 bulbs running all the time, you would expect one to die every week or so, on average.
Modern residential bulbs, at least in the US, are filled with inert gasses, like nitrogen and/or argon. They’re not vacuum bulbs, so I don’t think old, leaky bulbs would be a problem.
I’ve never heard of an incandescent bulb “overheating.” Large wattage bulbs, operated base-up, can damage light fixtures, but the bulb’s filament is supposed to get very, very hot - that’s the entire operating principle of the light bulb. Heck, halogen bulbs and fixtures are deliberately designed to make the bulb extra-hot. If the filament was overheating so much that it effected the bulb’s life, the bulb would burn much brighter than normal.
Presumably your bulbs are rated for 220v or 230v - what voltage do you read from the mains? In the US, most electrical equipment is rated for 120v or 125v, but mains power is more likely to be a little less - 110v-115v.
I’ve never heard of an incandescent bulb “overheating.”
Try putting a 100W bulb in a goose neck lamp pointed down rated for 60W and see how long it takes for the bulb, minus the screw in base, to explode out of the lamp.
If this is true then you may have a failing motor such as the refridgerator. Compressors, when they kick on, drop the voltage on the line. I showed this with a VOM memory to someone who had a constantly resetting embedded computer that was on the same outlet as a bar size beer cooler.
Pardon me if I missed this, but how are you monitoring the voltage?
I got a nifty Radio Shack multimeter for Christmas which can interface to a PC via serial cable, and monitor and log the voltage, current, frequency, etc…
but it happens to all of us in the house, not just me! (unless you are suggesting a genetic link? A bulb-blowing gene? 
:o 
:rolleyes: :mad: :eek: 
;j :wally :smack: :dubious: