Frequent light bulb burn outs

[TURTLE]

This is Turtle.

Light bulbs of to day are trash but you need to get 130 volt rated bulbs and not the 120 volt or 115 volt rated bulbs. 130 volt rated bulbs can be bought but mostly at auto parts houses or electric supply houses. these places call these bulbs Ruff service bulbs and if you look at them and they are not rated for 130 volt service -- they are not ruff service bulbs.

Now off the shelf of stores if you see 130 volt rated light bulbs. They are ruff service light bulbs and will last a long time. 130 volt rated bulbs should last atleast 3 times what a 120 volt rated bulb will last.

now here is why bulbs are burned out so quick lately. the bulbs are rated to operate at 120 volts and most supply voltage to houses now a days is from 122 to

124 volts. your running the bulbs on 124 volt service and they are only rated to operate on 120 volts. Your just over volting the bulbs and wondering what is the problem.

Never over volt a light bulb and ask why it burns out so fast !

TURTLE

[RP]

Only you could say something like over volt and get away with it ;) On another note, burned/corroded bases can also cause premature failure. The little brass finger in the middle of the socket can be cleaned with a flate blade screw driver (with the breaker *off* of course). Sorry for borrowing your spelling of flate :)

hvacrmedic

[TURTLE]

This is Turtle.

i was just not in a 50 cent word mood tonite.

New words to borrow . The Rope was too ''short'' to reach. Or The rope was too ''shirt'' to reach.

TURTLE

[Eric]

Yeh, they probably saved a whole 5 cents every month Eric

[Don Klipstein]

I have seen 130V lightbulbs at Lowes.

I have found "rough service", "vibration resistant" "shock/vibration" lightbulbs to have a filament with multiple supports. Separate issue from design voltage, although I have seen lightbulbs with multisupported filaments being somewhat more likely to be rated for 130V than ones with unsupported or 1-support filaments.

The usual rule is 130V bulb lasts 2.6 times as long as a 120V one of same life expectancy for design voltage.

Another thing: At a given supply voltage, 130V version of a given lightbulb design produces about 23% less light (with only about 11% less power consumption) than the 120V version of the same design available in both design voltages (if 120V and 130V versions of the same design are available). You may be able to use a lower wattage of the 120V version than of the

130V version, and if so you usually save more on your electric bill than you spend on buying 160% more lightbulbs.

At 124 volts the usual rule is that 120V lightbulbs have average life expectancy about 2/3 what is rated.

However, please keep in mind that using 120V lightbulbs, especially shorter life versions of name brands, instead of 130V or otherwise longlife ones, often enables one to use a lower wattage and save where the bigger savings are - electric bill.

Compact fluorescents are a further improvement where they are suitable - power consumption is mostly in the range of 20-35% of that of incandescents of same light output.

- Don Klipstein ( [e-mail])

[Don Klipstein]

5 watts at a somewhat typical USA residential electricity cost of 10 cents per KWH means .05 cent per hour. One lightbulb only has to run a bit over 3 hours per day for 5 watts to save a nickel per month - per bulb.

Now, how about compact fluorescents - a 60 watt incandescent can be replaced by a 13 watt compact fluorescent optimistically, and a 19 or 20 watt one conservatively. This means 40 watts less power consumption. At 10 cents per KWH, this means .4 cent per hour, and a lightbulb used 3 hours a day has a 40 watt reduction saving 48 cents a month or $5.76 per year. Should a 20 watt compact fluorescent costing $6 last only 2,000 hours, over that 2,000 hours the 40 watt reduction saves typically $8 in electricity cost. Keep in mind that compact fluorescents usually last much longer than this when used where suitable, and are usually rated

6,000-10,000 hours. At 4,000 hours, electricity savings are typically $16, subtract $6 (or as little as $2 per bulb for a Home Depot or Lowes promo) but have additional savings of a 4-pack of incandescents saved ($1-$4) - you save, usually bigger time than with same money put into a mutuial fund!

- Don Klipstein ( [e-mail])

[w_tom]

Without taking numbers (ie using a volt meter), then all answers will be either speculation or solutions to the symptoms. If your line voltage is high, then those failing light bulbs would be symptoms of other (undesirable) problems. If the voltage is not high, then recommendations such as 130 volt bulbs would not be useful. No way around the advantages of first learning those numbers.

Meanwhile, what was the voltage rat> "Did you put a bunch of new bulbs in at that time?"

[jim evans]

jim ___ Have a home upkeep question? Try my help page. It's sort of an alt.home.repair FAQ.

[Bud]

Rough service, because of more supoorts, also put out less lumens per watt, in addition to costing more. Not a good idea unless there is a vibration or impacct problem.

Bud--

[Bud]

The bottom line of the economics above is that given the cost of the energy and bulb, use 120V bulbs. 130 volt bulbs are equivalent to long life bulbs; they last longer but produce significantly less light. Long life bulbs are worth using in locations where the bulb is hard to replace.

I seriously doubt that line voltage is 122-124 volts in significant areas of the US.

The OPs 55 watt bulbs probably produce 55 watts worth of light, not 60 watts worth. (I havn't followed the whole thread; this may have been covered.)

Bud--

[Fred]

10-4. I need to get my hands on a voltmeter.

The volt rating on the 55s is 120

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, My house is ~10 year old. Bulbs installed by lighting contractor were marked commercial duty, 120-130V. In 10 years only one bulb burnt out. We have ~3000 sq. ft. 2 story with lots of bulbs. So find some bulbs like this at your local supply house. Also check your in-house wiring. Make sure everything is tight. Tony

[TURTLE]

This is Turtle.

I just got my vom simpson 260 out and I have 123 and 124 volts at my computor outlet over about 2 minutes. Yes there is 123 volts out there in the world.

TURTLE

[Don Klipstein]

I have used several different voltmeters in quite a few homes in the Philadelphia area, and most were anywhere from 121 to 126 volts. I even got a large number of readings over quite a period of time in a few of these and voltage was a little higher than 120 most of the time.

Then again, with PECO rates, I would worry more about energy efficiency of lightbulbs than about how long they last, even to a greater extent than with electricity at USA average rate.

- Don Klipstein ( [e-mail])

[w_tom]

In some locations, voltages approaching 130 volts have been reported. A location where the primary wires were not sufficient. Line voltage was increased causing some areas to have high voltage during high consumption periods - so that other areas farther downline had minimally sufficient voltage. Eventually the utility rewired those primaries; eliminating the voltage variations. Meantime, higher voltage variations were observed.

The utility recently upped a 4K primary to 33K. This elim> I have used several different voltmeters in quite a few homes in the