Light Bulb Shattered

supergirl2

Has anyone experienced turning on a light switch and the glass of a light bulb just shattered into pieces??
This used to happed in our previous home (over 200 years old) before we moved into a brand new house and we put it down to dodgy electrics so we were extremely suprised to find it happen in our new home at the weekend, now i mean new home as in brand new!!
Literally, we turned on the light switch and "bang", the bulb just shattered and tripped the switch, leaving the metal part behind in the holder.
We were using one of the cheap bulbs, you know the black and yellow boxed type, bulb only in 5 months, happened no where else except in this room (utility).
Wondering what caused it to happen?
A short, faulty bulb, paranormal activity????

Michael Collins

It can't really be anything to do with your electrics, you'll be happy to know. The only thing it can be is a poor quality bulb. If it happened at random while the bulb was on, it could have been a voltage spike - but it didn't, it happened when you turned it on.

This is when most bulbs blow. The reason for this is before you turn it on the filament inside the bulb is cold, this means the current that flows through it initally is rather large, which means the filament gets really hot, rather quickly. So this is the most periless time for any bulb! Now for the whole bulb to explode is very rare, but if the glass is thin and / or the gass mixture inside is a bit off, it can happen.

themole

If the room was cold and hence the bulb, it could shatter due to the rapid heating when the bulb was turned on.

Most bulbs should have thick enough glass to present this from happening, so as said above it was just a crap bulb.