Friday, June 3, 2011

The light bulbs I put into the pole lamp at the end of our driveway keep on shattering.?

I%26#039;ve tried using both convential and halogen bulbs- still blow and break. I checked voltage using a VOM and is OK. I%26#039;ve changed the lamp head thinking the rain water was getting to the hot bulb. Any suggestions?|||I just want to underscore the importance of what previous poster says about halogen bulbs. Learned this the hard way, myself! Any grime or the slightest oil from your hand or fingers will cause the bulb to blow out very quickly, if not immediately.





Have you dried putting in a very low wattage bulb (even though it doesn%26#039;t give the desired lighting effect), just as an experiment, to see whether it is as vulnerable to whatever elements might be at play here? That might tell you something.|||Find out which neighbor has a bb gun or a kid with a bb gun.|||If the bulbs have a blueish black run when they blow out it%26#039;s water causing the problem. Check screws, it doesn%26#039;t take but a couple of drops to blow a bulb. If you use a halogen do not touch with your hands. The grease from a finger can cause it to blow. Use gloves.|||If the glass on the bulb is breaking, you have a temperature differential problem. That is, the bulb is getting so hot compared to the relative temperature outside, that the glass cannot withstand the temperature difference, and it will shatter. It is shattering soon after it comes on, not just after it turns off, and definitely not while it is sitting dormant. Kind of like running a jar of pickles under hot water so you that can get the lid off. It may suddenly shatter. Same principle. Sudden temperature difference. It%26#039;s the same thing that causes most heart attacks. Most of us are not used to sudden temperature differences in our body, and the heart goes into thrombosis (rapid, uncontrolled beating ot the heart). But anyway, to answer your question, I would suggest compact fluorescent light bulbs. They operate at a very cool temperature (you can touch them while they%26#039;re on), they last a long, long time while saving as much as 60% of the energy consumed by an incandescent light bulb, and they throw out more lumens (light). Hope this helps.





Rex|||I suspect the bulb not tight enough or a bad fixture. Either one will cause excessive heat at the bulb base and cause very premature bulb failure.|||ask a tection|||Don%26#039;t rule out the wiring. A friend of mine had a similar problem with a twist. The bulbs wouldn%26#039;t last long, but the earth worms in his garden sure made it lush around the light pole. The wrong kind of wire was used and it ran right through his garden and got watered every other day. One day I got a shock helping him pull weeds in that garden and that%26#039;s how we figured out the problem. The wire was replaced and no more problem. Could of been worse.