Has anyone else had problem w/ Utilitech brand of bulbs from Lowes???

Status
Not open for further replies.
R

rt66electric

Senior Member
Location
Oklahoma
I had had several calls from a few comercial customers.. "I just put these bulbs in, they burnout quickly , There must be something wrong with the fixtures"

The common thing is " UTILITECH " brand recently puyrchased from lowes.

Has anyone else had problems????
 
G

gar

Senior Member
Location
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Occupation
EE
140412-2355 EDT

The Consumer Reports comments and the testimonials are of virtually no use. Totally unscientific and there is no discussion of the operating conditions.

The comments were primarily on CFLs and not LEDs.

My neighbor says he has about 75 can lights in which he has changed from incandescent to CFL and substantially reduced his electric bill. He said that over two years possibly 3 CFLs have failed. I would expect a higher failure rate. I doubt that many of these are on for a large number of hours per day, and they are possibly dimmed. I do not see his home overly lighted.

I have had little trouble with run of the mill Home Depot CFLs that I use where there is adequate ventilation. I do not run any in a closed situation, and I only have a few CFLs, but several are on for long hours of the day. Mostly I have fluorescent. I am only running one LED and that is for about 16 hours per day, and not enclosed.

I believe the high failure rates are on bulbs used in enclosed fixtures. Also CFLs that don't work well on phase shift dimmers can be blown very quickly by the dimmer being set at a low level.

.
 
Dennis Alwon

Dennis Alwon

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Chapel Hill, NC
Occupation
Retired Electrical Contractor
For me cfl's are my last resort. I never did like them even though their are some good ones out there. The biggest problem has been much lower life then expected
 
R

rt66electric

Senior Member
Location
Oklahoma
gar said:
140412-1244 EDT

If there is no air flow around the bulb, then this may be the problem. What kind of fixture?

See my posts #10 and #11 at http://forums.mikeholt.com/showthread.php?t=160447 .

.
Click to expand...

The style of fixtures vary.

In the gimbal style track lights, Utilitech BR style bulbs have failed quickly..
the standard par30 50watts shortneck are getting scarce.

My customers are SLUTS , they will "screw anything" in a can.


Sylvania , FIET , EIKO, and others have had good service life.

People will goto big blue or big orange, and are overwhelmed by the selection, and cannot find the correct bulb.

It just seems as though their quality has plummited recently.

Spiral bulbs tend to last fairly well in can lights, as compared to incandent BR and PAR bulbs.

Is it better to put a BR40 in a can and fill the trim,so that the heat is projected out,
or, put a smaller BR30 in a can with space between the bulb and trims to allow the the heat to flow up and through??
 
N

norcal

Senior Member
I bought a couple LED Utilitech A-lamps for a ceiling fan light kit, they did fail rather quickly & Lowes did refund my money, currently have some CREE LED lamps in their place & doing fine so far, w/ the PG&E (we ratepayers in reality) subsidy, they were about $8 a pop.

I look at the Utilitech brand in the same way as the Skull & Crossbones, a warning to stay away.


Blurry iPhone photo.

 
Last edited:
Fulthrotl

Fulthrotl

~Autocorrect is My Worst Enema.~
Location
HB, CA (19 Hrs. 22 Min. from Winged Horses)
Occupation
E
rt66electric said:
I had had several calls from a few comercial customers.. "I just put these bulbs in, they burnout quickly , There must be something wrong with the fixtures"

The common thing is " UTILITECH " brand recently puyrchased from lowes.

Has anyone else had problems????
Click to expand...

my next door neighbor came over, convinced the wiring in his house was failing.
he changed the lights in his kitchen to piggly wiggly lights, and by the time
he had changed 8 can lights, two of them had failed... about 15 minutes

he bought the "big pack" from costco. :huh:

you get what you pay for.
 
H

hurk27

Senior Member
Location
Portage, Indiana NEC: 2008
Dennis Alwon said:
For me cfl's are my last resort. I never did like them even though their are some good ones out there. The biggest problem has been much lower life then expected
Click to expand...

Really When I moved into this house in 2008 I installed all CFL's some were ones I had took from my old place, also I removed all dimmers, I only use Sylvania Micro Mini's 2700k color and 60 watt and 100 watt EQL. which when behind a frosted cover you cant tell from an incandescent, I think I have replaced 3 in the 6 years I been in here., over the years I have tried many different brands and types, from the cheap to the name brands like Phillips, Ge, and a few others, and the above are the only ones I have come to rely on, even the full size Sylvania's don't seem to last as long as the Micro Mini's.

But then I also have allot of surge suppression with low pass chokes to stop surges above 70hz which most surges are above this.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top