I have a call today the customer is saying that their lights are burning really fast even after replacing them. Anyone have any clue what this might be?
The first thing to check is the wattage limitations of the fixture itself. Installing a 200 watt bulb in a fixture rated for 60 watts not only will cause the 200 watt bulb to burn out too quickly, but it also becomes a fire hazard. This is due to the excessive heat that will build up in the fixture and surrounding area.
If you?ve made sure you?ve got the correct wattage of quality bulbs installed and you still are replacing them too often, it may be due to excessive vibration. Some bulbs are subject to shaking simply due to their location. Fixtures near a door are a prime example. Another source of vibration may be the occupants of the building, such as a childs bedroom, or equipment such as an exercise room. The constant movement of these items shakes the walls, floors & cielings, and that vibration is transferred to the bulb's filament. Cheaper lamps have fewer supports for the filament, and any vibration isn't reduced as much when there's fewer filament supports. Using a better quality bulb avoids this problem. If the fixture can be outfitted with 'rough-service' bulbs, that would be one option to try. Rough service bulbs may also be called garage-door operator bulbs, appliance bulbs, or ceiling fan bulbs. They are designed with additional support for the filament than a standard bulb. Another option to look at is Compact Fluorescent (CF) bulbs, which have no filament. And with todays' advancing technology, you may want to look into Light-Emitting-Diode (LED) lights as well.
If none of the above suggestions seem to help, there?s one more thing to try.
And it comes as a surprise to many that there actually are right and wrong ways to proverbially, ?screw in a light bulb'. You may be twisting them into the socket too tightly.
By ?cranking down? on a bulb during installation you may be causing the most damage to the socket. Premature bulb failure is often caused by bulbs that have been installed too tightly into light fixtures.
Look into the base of a light fixture socket and you will see a brass tab. This tab is bent at an angle when the fixtures are new and will spring back and forth if depressed slightly. Now take several new light bulbs and inspect the base of each one. You will quickly notice that the bottom of most light bulbs has a small dot of solder in the center of the base. More importantly the size of this drop of solder is not exactly consistent. It is close in size, but not always the same size or height.
If the brass tab at the base of the socket does not make firm contact with the bottom of the light bulb, the connection may heat up, and this heat cause the filament to burn out too soon.
To prevent this you must be sure the brass tab is always at about a 30 degree angle inside the bottom of the socket. People who twist bulbs in tightly will depress and flatten the tab so it does not spring back when a bulb is replaced.
If you discover the tab is flattened, then you must turn off the power to the lights at the switch. As an additional safety measure, turn off the circuit breaker to the lights. Use a needle-nose pliers and carefully grasp the sides of the brass tab and slowly pull it up so the end of the tab is about one quarter inch off the base of the socket.
When you install a bulb always do so with the power off and the light switch on. Screw the bulb in enough for the thread to hold the bulb in place. Turn on the power, and continue turning the bulb. As soon as the bulb comes on, turn the bulb one-eighth of a turn. If you screw the bulb in too tightly, you will once again flatten the brass tab.
Ummmm... same as what 480sparky said. I have found the tabs flattened quite often and it does cause the lamps life to be shortened. In addition to the other things that have been discussed, if your measured voltage is a little high (not uncommon in my area to measure 123-124 L-N) this is a great opportunity to upsell a dimmer switch to your clients. A quality dimmer switch will automatically lower your voltage at the sockets to around 90% of the original voltage, even with the dimmer set to full on. Lamp life at 90% voltage, in my experience, is at least 4X the life without the dimmer. I've had the same BR65 lamps in the RC fixtures in my kitchen for almost 3 years now. Before you ask, the kitchen lights get used alot.
I don't see this as a good sell with the upcoming phasing out of incandescant lamps. Unless you don't care about repeat customers or referrals from previous customers.
You left out the single most important clue as to the possible cause, and I suspect your customer didn't give you this clue.I have a call today the customer is saying that their lights are burning really fast even after replacing them.
I have a call today the customer is saying that their lights are burning really fast even after replacing them. Anyone have any clue what this might be?
I have a call today the customer is saying that their lights are burning really fast even after replacing them. Anyone have any clue what this might be?
If there's a large number of lights I always found the cuplrit to be the customer perception.
I had many times customers complaining that they change too many lamps. I do a quick count of their lights and they have 60 light poles. 12hrs a day, 7K hr a year times 60=420K hrs.
So I tell the customer at 20K hrs you should replace about 20 a year.
And then they suddenly realize they're only changing 14-15.
Second, related also to perception, one has to realize that as the light fixtures get older, the lamps will last shorter. You open an exterior fixture a few times, water will start getting in, the elements start making their presence felt. Connections get a little hot, a little dust here, a little rust there. All adds up to reducing the life of the lamp.
Third, with similar large amount of lamps, I noticed the lamps were not actually replaced. Again, I had calls that they replaced a certain lamp few days before and now doesn't work. I go take a look and I CAN TELL the lamp was not replaced recently.
If it's none of the above, most other times it's vibration(especially in incandescent lamp, boy, they don't like vibration). Or bad sockets. Arcing sockets will kill lamps quickly(especially incandescent ones)
Interesting thread. I just had a service call where we replaced 40 watt 130 volt A-19 Phillips lamps and one of the fixtures would not work, tore it apart, check everything, repeat, repeat, etc... We had about 2 dozen lamps on the van that day and thought that we were putting in bad lamps. We decided to check every one of our lamps with a DMM and about 1/2 of the lamps had zero resistance/no continuity. I had to pick up other supplies, so I brought all the lamps top the supply house and had them replace them. I thought I was crazy, so I asked the counter guy to test the lamps with his DMM and he got the same results. I then asked him to try the lamp in a display fixture and the ALL worked! I was so embarrassed; how could it be that there is no resistance/continuity, but the lamp lights?
Back at the house we re-learned the results of shotgun troubleshooting and that the fixture in which we were replacing lamps was repaired after simply bending the center socket tab up a little bit. PS: for those who hate no contact voltage sensors, they are perfect for this task!
To prove I wasn't going crazy I called our local Philips lighting rep and explained the situation to him. His take was that the pallet of lamps was probably dropped in shipping, and he ended up taking the pallet out of inventory; his concern was that the DMM likely couldn't bridge whatever gap may have been created, but that 120 volts was able to and that the lamps would likely not last long.