Kitchen light burning through bulbs
 

It began awhile ago. We moved into this apartment in July, and the first bulb in the kitchen light fixture burnt out. I replaced it. In I'd say 3-4 weeks that one had burnt too. Strange I thought. So i changed it again. It said 100W max on the fixture, and that was a 75 I'd had in there so I put a 100 W in. It was about a week before that one went. One roomate wants to just keep putting in new bulbs, and changing them, but I'm a little weary as that'll get expensive and its quite possibly a fire hazard. I took the cover off and I don't see anything obviously wrong, but I'm no electrician. Anyone have any suggestions? Or should I just get the landlord to get an electrician in here? Thanks a bunch!

Call your landlord, have them check it out. You pay rent to cover those kinds of things and there could be a short somewhere causing problems.

If you can do it safely, use a voltmeter and test the voltage running through the fixture. There's a chance that a voltage drop is causing the bulb to draw more amperage from the circuit than it should, still coming to 100 watts, but burning bulbs with the increased current.

Sounds like a short somewhere, could be a simple as replacing the light switch, regardless make your land lord do it. If they don't you can resort to gorilla tactics, take outside bulbs from around the apt that they have to replace and take them and put your burnt out ones in them.

Wait a minute! Were that postulate true, I could take a bulb and connect it to a variac, and as I reduced voltage from 120, the brilliance would be constant, and as I neared zero, the bulb would fail, since you're claiming that at 10 volts supply, the bulb would draw 10 Amps?! Furthermore, if your point was accurate, then how would one explain the use of a simple rotary dimmer? They are rheostats, or variable resistors, and they reduce supply voltage to the fixture. :highly skeptical smiley:

HEAT

Heat is the enemy of the lightbulb.

Make sure that you buy an appliance grade tungsten bulb that is ment to be placed above a range.

-SF

Kazoo's right - voltage drop would extend the life of the bulb if it did anything. A voltage increase, on the other hand, can kill 'em pretty damn quick.

It sounds like this is a ceiling light in the kitchen, not the range hood light, right? Is it a hanging light, or fastened to the wall? Is there an apartment above you? Is there a vibration issue?

you can try a ceiling fan lightbulb if you want - they have tougher fillaments to withstand vibration.

Or you could go get yourself one of those compact flourescent (sp?) bulbs. If that thing burns out in less than several years than you REALLY know you have a problem.

a kitchen light is generally enclosed. CF lights do not like heat, and will die prematurely if run in an enclosed fixture. That and the fact that their light quality sucks. . . ;)

Try one of the heavy duty bulbs made for garage door openers. The heat of the fixture along with vibrations from people walking around (is there a floor above you?) is probably what's making them blow out.

I'm wondering where these lights are that they are getting seemingly high amounts of heat. I have CF bulbs that though they are not enclosed, I leave on for weeks at a time because of the low energy/heat dissipation and can put my bare hands on them without fear of burning myself. Just my experience though.

As far as light quality goes...hmmmm...I guess that's all personal opinion because I've been using them for years and actually prefer them to filament bulbs.

Right on! ....and for y'all wannabe expects -- a short would cause the circuit breaker to trip!!
Solution: Reduce wattage of bulb (ie; 60 watts) and ensure globe is clean. An over voltage (ie: 125+ volts) is a probable cause, although 117Volts is ideal - a lot of transformers will supply 120+ depending on the configuration (ie; wye/delta) which is still within industry acceptable limits. And by the way, I've found that quality bulbs (ie; GE / Philips) are worth it instaed of the generic WalMart/ Kmart brands..

You are making the patently false assumption that all circuit breakers perform flawlessly all of the time.


No, that's not a good solution, especially in a kitchen. You want to solve the problem without having to reduce the light output. If you reduce light output, especially in a kitchen, you aren't getting what you should be getting out of the light. Besides, he had lights go after 3 weeks that were 25w under the rated wattage of the fixture.

Lightbulbs are designed for 120 volts. Anything below 120 will extend their life but reduce their maximum output. The main exception is in the "ultra long life" bulbs which cheat by being designed for 130, which does make them last longer, but they're not as bright as the same-wattage bulb in 120.



It's mainly luck of the draw, and from the symptoms he is describing, the brand is irrelevant. He has bulbs burning out a week after he installs them. Just about any lightbulb will last longer than a week unless it's abused by conditions in the fixture it's installed in.

Treating the symptoms never cures the problem. He needs to discover the problem rather than trying to slap a bandaid over it.

I sometimes run into the problem where I won't replace a bulb for almost a year and then all of a sudden I spend the next 2 or 3 weeks changing burnt out bulbs everywhere. It's almost as if I'm suddenly getting spikes in the electricity which causes all the bulbs to burn out. Could the problem be that he's getting spikes to the bulb? If the apartment was at the end or beginning of the line from the transformer would it cause problems with electrical spiking due to other apartments turning on and off lights? Or maybe it has some crappy wiring and the light is on the same circuit as say the garbage disposer and when the garbase disposer is used it's causing electrical spikes to hit the light causing it to burn out?

Sorry not much help, I do a lot of wiring but don't know much beyond the basics.

Obviously, I haven't seen or examined the fixture in question, but I'll go out on a speculative limb.

The fixture is likely old, and although VitaminH sees no signs of something wrong, and is properly lamping the fixture, it may well have been overlamped in the past.

That said, overlamping can cause deterioration of the connection where rivets hold fixture wires to the pin and shell connections in the Edison lamp base(s). Once the connection has degraded, the lamp base will operate at a higher temperature than a new fixture, owing to the high resistance of the poor connections. This higher base temperature may be the cause of lamp failure.

Any other hypotheses are welcome, other than shorts. Shorts don't reduce lamp life, they avoid commando life. :D

The light is a hanging light, from the ceiling and it is nowhere near enough to the range to be getting any heat from that. The bulbs we had in there were GE bulbs, at least I know the last two were (the one that went in 3 weeks and the one that went in 1).

I do know that the landlady's nephew rennovated the apartment this summer before we moved in, and he did a very poor job of it. I wonder if he screwed something up and it's just precipitating now.

Oh, and it's finals time and all three of us have been on the run plus the landlady seems to have disappeared (she does that now and then) but rumor has it she's home today and we're going down later to voice our complaint.

FWIW, VitaminH I'd like you to examine the next failed bulb, or if you have one that hasn't been whacked 12 ways for Topeka. Get hold of a jewelers file or a slim taper triangular file and take the time to score through the glass envelope, taking care not to end up with an emergency room visit.

If the filament is intact, together with the support wires, then failure is in the base, and I stand by my previous hypothesis. If the filament is broken, that would indicate physical shock-rather unlikely in a pendant fixture.

Since there are three of you, are you sure that your buddies haven't conspired to screw with your mind? Hey Frank-put the burned out bulb back in after he's asleep-he just changed it yesterday.:D

try a "ruff service" bulb. They are usually with the electric wiring supplies for contractors to use on job lights that get banged around. I think they are generally heavier duty with heavier filiments, etc. I bet you will have a hard time going through one of those in less than a year - unless your fixture traps heat like a mother...