How many BYOACers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

[javeryh]

OK, this has to be one of the dumbest questions (in a long line of dumb questions) that I've ever asked but here goes...  The lights in my house (TV room and kitchen) keep burning out very quickly and the only thing I can think of is that I'm buying the wrong bulbs.  If inside the fixture says 75W R30 or 150W R30 then I need a 75W or 150W bulb, right?  If I get one rated for 65W is that OK?  These are of the overhead variety and we are trying to go "green" with the low energy consumption/long lasting bulbs but they are expensive and they don't last for more than a few months max.  What am I doing wrong?

[DashRendar]

You can always use lower wattage bulbs in a fixture that is rated for a higher wattage.

Not sure why they'd be burning out so fast, unless they're on all the time.  I suppose there could be an electrical problem that sends a surge when you flick them on and off which could be reducing the life of the bulbs, maybe.

[DJ_Izumi]

The wattage raiting is really a 'maximum' to ensure that the bulb doesn't start melting things in the fixture.  It's not really related to how long the light will last, as the bulb and fixture are simple as hell.

Though you could considder CFLs, they last like 8x longer and consume 1/4 the power.

[Ginsu Victim]

Though you could considder CFLs, they last like 8x longer and consume 1/4 the power.

And if you bust one, you have to call in a hazmat crew.

[saint]

I don't like the light the CFLs give either. Ermm... I've got nothing useful as to the original question though

[garnerb350]

hehehe....Id never thought i'd see this here....it is funny. ( its not a dumb question, its just random) But as everybody here knows, we are basiclly family and we have to take care of our own.

I suppose there could be an electrical problem that sends a surge when you flick them on and off which could be reducing the life of the bulbs, maybe.

I agree with Dash, BUT that would be the extreme case...( I see where Dash is coming from...we dont know because we never been to your house)

Could it be maybe you just got a bad batch of bulbs?

Now I know that if I use lower wattage bulbs in my house, there is less light output...( example : a 40 w bulb in a 75 w fixture) but if the fixture says 60, I buy 60 watt bulbs...
CFLs or "pigtails" ( NC redneck term)... I used a couple for my outside porch lights and they are ok..but like Saint said:

I don't like the light the CFLs give either.

I dont like CFL...but here a site that can maybe help ya better... http://www.energy4you.net/aboutcfl.htm

And also I 100% agree with Ginsu on what he said...   http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/cfl.asp

"This isnt Kansas anymore....This is Pandor....(oops sorry wrong topic)"

[FrizzleFried]

If it's a can light (recessed light),  I had the same experiences with CFL's... those can lights trap heat and kill CFL's... I ended up just sticking to incandescent lights for all my can-light applications.

[Hoopz]

I thought we had this covered:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=44853.0

NSFW link though for those who click through....

[bkenobi]

I didn't see anything related to the question in the link, so I'll post anyway.

I have a similar problem in my house where some lights will flicker when I turn on the garbage disposal, when playing pinball, or when the TV in the arcade turns on.  I thought it was bad fixtures (canned lights), but it turns out it's something even more stupid and virtually unsolvable.

As it turns out, the builder used one run of 4 conductor wire to wire up the garbage disposal and the front of the house (where the arcade stuff is).  He put the disposal on one circuit and everything else on another, but he shared the neutral.  As a result, the lights see a large voltage drop when anything high current is activated.  The disposal is on its own circuit, but it provides cross talk via the neutral.

The solution is to rewire things, but that ain't gonna happen.  I picked up some CFL's since they don't have filaments to burn out and don't need as much current so the current drop shouldn't affect them as much.  They do flicker a bit, but not as much as they used to.  Time will tell if this is a fix or not...

Anyway, if your lights are wired with a shared neutral from anything high current, you will get flickering and see higher bulb failure rates.

[garnerb350]

I didn't see anything related to the question in the link, so I'll post anyway.

I have a similar problem in my house where some lights will flicker when I turn on the garbage disposal, when playing pinball, or when the TV in the arcade turns on.  I thought it was bad fixtures (canned lights), but it turns out it's something even more stupid and virtually unsolvable.

As it turns out, the builder used one run of 4 conductor wire to wire up the garbage disposal and the front of the house (where the arcade stuff is).  He put the disposal on one circuit and everything else on another, but he shared the neutral.  As a result, the lights see a large voltage drop when anything high current is activated.  The disposal is on its own circuit, but it provides cross talk via the neutral.

The solution is to rewire things, but that ain't gonna happen.  I picked up some CFL's since they don't have filaments to burn out and don't need as much current so the current drop shouldn't affect them as much.  They do flicker a bit, but not as much as they used to.  Time will tell if this is a fix or not...

Anyway, if your lights are wired with a shared neutral from anything high current, you will get flickering and see higher bulb failure rates.

Damn.......and that is why.... he is called bkenobi...

[DaOld Man]

Sharing neutrals with common stuff (lights, garbage disposals, electric chairs, etc) and computers is bad. Harmonics.
Back to OT, have you tried bulbs rated for higher voltage? Bulbs rated for 125 or 130 VOLTS instead of 115 or 120 can last a lot longer, because they draw less current, less current means less heat, which means longer bulb life.
The higher voltage bulbs probably put out less light, but you wont notice it.

[RayB]

Do the bulbs flicker too sometimes? Or they just don't last long. If its both, then it could be a failing breaker. I had a mains breaker fail on me after a few months of dipping/flickering lights, and even a couple killed things, like a lamp that stopped working and a computer got fried. One day half the house lost all power. It was one of the two main breakers. Had it replaced and the bulb flickering/burning out went away.

[javeryh]

Wow thanks for all the responses!  Good info here - I guess my wife was right when she was insisting that the wattage in the fixtures was a maximum and not what you had to use (of course I was insisting otherwise with no real knowledge).  The bulbs definitely flicker too but not all the time - sometimes completely on their own.  The room will dim and then get bright again for no apparent reason.  The lights in the TV room are on a dimmer too - sometimes I can dim them to almost off but other times the dimmer barely reduces the light in the room.  It is weird for sure.  I'll have to pay attention if it has something to do with another appliance or something else that uses electricity coming on.  We are slowly replacing the bulbs in the house with the pigtail ones (even though I don't like the light they give off but maybe I'm not used to them).

[polaris]

id get it checked out mate 

[DaOld Man]

Definitely get it checked out, Im not trying to scare you, but if it is a loose connection, it is generating heat.
Many many houses have burned because of loose connections.
A short circuit will most often trip a breaker, but a loose connection most often just generates heat, but it does give off warning signs, lights dimming, TV's turning off, computers re-booting.
Loose connections can also damage motor devices, (refrigerators, AC's, etc), and TV's and computers, because they dont like the voltage drop that a loose connection causes.
If your lights momentarily go  brighter when your refrigerator kicks on, that is a sure sign of a loose neutral in your breaker panel, or between your breaker panel and the light pole.
This causes an imbalance between the two 120 volt "legs", which can cause dangerously high voltages on 120 volt circuits. Voltages can swing from 120 to 240 volts when the neutral "breaks".
Call an electrician!

[saurian333]

I'm on my second house with the same light-flickering, bulb-eating problem.

It's these old houses.  The wiring just plain sucks (as bkenobi basically said).  CFLs do better, but as others have mentioned, it's not a great solution to have that kind of light everywhere in the house if you don't like it.  I haven't found another solution that works; lower wattages don't seem to help much.  Even if they did, my fiancée bitches that it's too dark with anything less than 100W.  (When the store's generic bulbs only went up to 90W, she paid 3 times as much to get the brand name 100W bulbs.)

Sorry I don't have anything else for you.  If you find a solution that doesn't involve CFLs, let me know.  I guess I could make the landlord call an electrician, but not until I'm off the night shift; bad enough the HVAC guy has to wake me up.

[evitagen]

Sounds like either a loose neutral in the panel or a breaker going bad.  I'm an electrician at a college and we have a lot of old off-campus housing and this happens commonly.

I'm not too sure how you feel about going into your electrical panel, so get someone else who knows what they are doing.  Tighten down all of the neutrals in the panel(which hopefully is where it would be loose at) and locate the breaker the lights are on and change it... It's probably 15A so it will be really cheap to replace.

I've had to actually go from device to device before trying to locate a loose neutral before I finally found it.

Although it could be anything... If you have an amp-meter you can turn everything on an get an amp reading on that circuit to make sure it's not pulling over 12-13A.

Hope this helps...

[drventure]

One thing I've noticed about CFL bulbs lately, if you watch which ones you buy there are some out there that are a much warmer color, and so look very close to incandescent.

The cheap ones at wal-mart will look like high school gym lights but there are better versions.

Thing is, I haven't really noticed these things lasting anywhere near the times people say they do. But, I have a number of them installed bulb down in cans, so it very well maybe the heat killing them.

[evitagen]

Yeah I think the next step will be LED lighting... it just costs a lot on the front end right now.

[bkenobi]

CFL's don't last as long as they say on the package because people don't use them the way they are tested.  CFL's are designed to be mounted vertically with the circuit on the bottom (bulb pointing up).  If you install them in any other direction they will get too hot without adequate air flow.  If you install them in a closed fixture (like a standard overhead light for instance), there is zero air flow, so they will get hot.  In this environment, you will probably see longer life out of an incandescent than from the "long life CFL".

There's one other thing that was suggested to me about the wiring that you might want to check.  It's possible that the power coming into your house is dirty.  It's possible there is a lot of noise on the line or inconsistent current even.  You can contact your power provider and ask them to check it for you.  My power company said they wouldn't check because they knew it was fine, but I've read (on different forums) that some people have had success in getting this type of problem fixed with a simple phone call.