Is there an electrician in the house ??

Dr. Dre

Any sparkys out there may be able to help me with a dilema ?
My house seems to have an insatiable appetite for light bulbs ! We must go through about 2 bulbs per month, all in different rooms in the house, there would appear to be no trend. They are good quality bulbs and our house is not haunted !!
Today for instance I bought a batch of bulbs in, as there were only 3 out of a possible 10 light bulbs working !! and already one of these has failed, what in the world is going on
BTW: The house is only about 5 years old, and we have never had any supply problems manifest themselves anywhere else, i.e. socket supplies seem fine etc..
Anyone help me out ?
Cheers

PhilipMarlowe

From an US site;

http://www.factsfacts.com/MyHomeRepair/liteBulb.htm

Not a sparky but certainly your supply could be "dirty" especially if you live in the country. Voltages can vary a lot here too and shít (said he knowingly...)

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

milltown

Has this been happening since the house was new? There may have been a lot of extra low voltage lights added after the house was wired initially, i.e. uplighters, downlighters or pelmet lights in the kitchen. If too many were added to a lighting circuit it may cause an increased load on the circuit and thus more current to flow through your 220volt lights. The transformers for the low voltage lights would ensure that they are getting the right supply so they would probably not go as often.
I'm not a sparks by the way so I'm prepared for my theory to be blown out of the water by anyone who knows better!

KdjaCL

jebus my house is like that .

I started buying the expensive Philips one and they get chewed up.

Tho Bob The Builders Evel Half assed brother used to live here and wrecked it.

It is a sparks thing but prolly cheaper buying a lot of lightbulbs then getting one of those in to fix it

Kdja

RicardoSmith

I live in a newish house and find that I'm going through a lot of light bulbs aswell.

Dotsie~tmp

Well ive heard of this before and we often find it hard to pin down as the reasons for over current in a circuit can be many.

First thought is your supply, possibility of small surges causing it, though this sounds unlikely to me. Anything that could burn up a bulb is sure to trip the circuit breaker (you have a trip switch and not fused board i presume?).

Second may be a faulty wiring at the fuse board. Again i cant see this being the problem. Any short circuits would trip the breaker.

Third may be a faulty breaker (plus maybe bad wiring) where short circuits go un tripped and short out bulbs. Again it is unlikely that these two thing are happening together.

Fourth! and the most likely. Nothing is wrong. Many people complain of this but its simply the fact that there are so many more bulbs about new houses that it seems as though they are constantly burning out. Add to this the fact that people leave them on for long periods day and night. The lifetimes stated on pack assume about 4hrs per day use. Id say average is more like 7 to 12 in most houses. Go by expected lifetime in hours on box. Not lifetime based on avg use per day.

_______
Dotsie

Matt Simis

I put energy saving bulbs everywhere I could in my house, and havent had a single burn out in 6 months. Thats including a bulb that stays on all night. Id never go back to ordinary bulbs.




Matt

RicardoSmith

An electrician told me that with new estates sometimes they don't give it enough power from the grid, initially anyway so that you can have flutations and power spikes for the first while. This espesically true if you live in an area near a big industrial estate or shopping center. etc. As these come online you are more likely to suffer from surges and spikes etc.

I know that when I first moved into my house I had some power surges and spikes that damaged some of computer equipment. The surge jumped from the power line to the phone line bypassing my surge protector and coming in to the computers though the modem and pssszzzzttttt. I now always put both the power line and the modem line through a surge protector and I have'nt had any problems since.

I don't agree with the overuse of lights theory. I use the lights less than I did in my old house because I'm not here as much. In my old house I might change one bulb every 3-4 months. In my new house its more like 2-3 every month. Its definately more frequent.

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by Matt Simis
I put energy saving bulbs everywhere I could in my house, and havent had a single burn out in 6 months. Thats including a bulb that stays on all night. Id never go back to ordinary bulbs.
Matt

The very gradual and initial slow lighting of these might be what prolongs their life. So you find them as bright and the same colour as ordinary blubs?

air

AFAIK surge protectors - as in the kind of ones that are an expensive version of a 4-way extension lead are total pants.

All they do is connect a MOV (Metal Oxide Varistor) between the phases & claim that this will dissipate any spikes.
In reality if you do get a big spike say, all it does is pass the spike from one phase to the other & the spike damages your equipment through the other one!

I reckon that they get away with offering their connected equipment warranties because the ESB (or equivalent) pays for any damage due to spikes anyway (assuming its their fault).

RicardoSmith

Yes but how do you prove that your equipment has been damaged by a spike? I've never heard ESB take responsability for any equipment damage ever. Where did you you get the idea that they do from?

Also I don't understand what you mean about the surge being switched through different phases. Can you explain this better. I thought that they simply switched the excess load to the ground? Like it talks about in this article.

http://www.howstuffworks.com/surge-protector.htm

spongebob

they will install logging equipment in your house for a week or two under strong pressure from you.

the best thing is to get a decent multimeter ....probably will cost €50+ with a serial cable to a pc.

this then logs the data .... such as current or amps .... out to the serial cable every 5-10 secs you must record amps for a few days and current for a few more days...a lighting circuit is 5 or 10 amp ...its written on the tripswitch. The current should be 220+ or - 10% which means 198-242 Volt range and not beyond that. A drop below 198v for any reason is called a brownout

you leave hyperterminal running on your pc all the time and then save the lot out as a log and import it to Excel as a csv or similar. you know if is logging if the log file keeps growing...hyperterminal may appear to be doing nothing .

then contact the esb....with hard data.... and bitch.

if you have a current problem you are damaging more than bulbs , the esb must fix brownouts.

an amps problem could be a crappy tripswitch in your house and not the esb at all......

I once had a multimeter plugged in for my ma with instructions to ring the esb if it ever beeped. it beeped when it went below 198v.

The ma kept ringing them for 2 days....they could hear the beeping in the background sometimes. The ESB came out and fixed the issue which was a hydraulic oil in a transformer station problem. Then they came down to the house to find out 'what' was beeping and knew they had been well caught. The current was by now in a range of 220 + or - 3v when it had been as low as 180v at times.

The ma gave them a nice cup of tea for fixing the problem. They put the multimeter back in its box....neatly wrapped up.

M

RicardoSmith

Lovely story but could you answer the questions I asked?

How do you prove that equipment has been damaged by a spike?

Where did you hear that the ESB pay for damaged equipment ?

What do you mean by "pass the spike from one phase to the other & the spike damages your equipment through the other one!"

air

yes I have heard of the esb paying for equip - my local parish priest had something cut through his supply (cant remember what) and his pc was fried. Anyway d esb paid up for the damage.
As regards the surge protectors yes they do connect to ground but remember that ground is connected to your equipment aswell & the spike will damage your equip through that unless you have Very Very good grounding - which is unlikely.
Search on the net for more info, you need incredible grounding for this to work without damaging ur equip.
Also MOVs deteriorate over time & have been know to display their "protecting" light even though the MOV's are burnt out

RicardoSmith

So basically you saying that all of these surge protectors are rubbish because they connect to ground and that they'll all fail over time so are in effect no use. Best solution to your mind is to buy a multimeter and monitor the fluctuations in power supply then ring ESB for 2days (or longer) and hassle them, to replace the lightbulbs and fix the supply?

I think it easier and cheaper to replace the blubs!!! I've already thrown the surge protector in the bin, it had those lights "on" so its probably burnt out like you said.

spongebob

if the esb cant find a problem then they wont fix it, if they do find it they will. They are not €ircom thank god..

if they dont fix it you cannot prove there was a problem and get the price of the bulbs outta them

I told ya where to start looking, cheap min/max multimeters can be got in peats but will not log the frequency of the out of range fluctuations ....merely that they happened since you last reset the multimeter

its a start and lest you feel compelled to offer, yes you are most welcome.

M

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by Muck

its a start and lest you feel compelled to offer, yes you are most welcome.
M

let me know where to send the box of roses ; )

bricks

But have you thought of ringing the ESB and telling them that you are getting a lot of bulbs blowing and ask them to check out your supply.

Also see this webpage for a long discussion of bulbs...
http://www2.abc.net.au/science/k2/stn/february2000/posts/topic36099.shtm

A small quote from it:

A normal bulb has a life expectancy of 5000 working hours. If the voltage supplied were 5% over its rated operating voltage, its expected life is halved. 5% under will double the life.

corkey

from a friendly Electrician friend


My friend says if you replace a bulp,Make sure your finger marks are not left on the bulp wipe clean it lets a grease mark behind you should find it helps with bulps anyway for the rest ?

longword

Originally posted by air
As regards the surge protectors yes they do connect to ground but remember that ground is connected to your equipment aswell & the spike will damage your equip through that unless you have Very Very good grounding - which is unlikely.
Search on the net for more info, you need incredible grounding for this to work without damaging ur equip.

Searching the web isn't always the best answer. Americans have always had a really crappy power supply grid and poor electrical standards. Houses in this part of the world are required to have a proper earth that actually goes into the earth. I think ELCBs are required these days too.

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by bricks
But have you thought of ringing the ESB and telling them that you are getting a lot of bulbs blowing and ask them to check out your supply.

Good idea

air

with regard to the grounding issue, you need one hell of a ground to dissipate a full on lightning strike coming in through your supply. In fairness even the best home wiring is wired with an earth designed to improve safety in the case of an equipment failure / accident etc. Look at the size of the grounding rod at the bottom of your average lightning conductor for comparison.

With regard to grease on the light bulbs, AFAIK this is only an issue with halogen bulbs which run at 200 degrees C or something like that. At those temps the grease will cause the halogen bulb to burn apparently, you're never supposed to touch them & if you do you're supposed to clean them with alcohol.

Snowbat

Are all the light switches from the same vendor? Might be worth replacing one with an older switch to see if the lifetime increases on that circuit.

Are there any strong radio transmissions in the area?

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
Where did you hear that the ESB pay for damaged equipment ?

ESB paid a tv repair bill for a relation of mine when presented with a note from a technician stating that a supply fault was the only possible cause for the kind of component failure he found in that tv (details were provided).

Boston

Read through a couple of replies, mostly guess work.

You should have a circuit breaker for each set of lights in your house, I.e. one for downstairs up stairs and then one for the others.

They should also be 10amp, if some gob****e but it 20amp circuit breakers for the lights, then you run the risk of blowing the light bulbs before you flip the circuit breaker. Its not that they are "used up faster" as one member said, the 10amp stands for the max amount of current allowed through the circuit.

So basically so check your fuse board, fine out which ones are for the lights, then report back what the amp values are.