# Forum Home Renovation Lighting  light bulbs blowing

## breanna

Hi all , We have a problem with light bulbs blowing in our house , over the last 18 months we have changed the hallway bulb three times , kitchen two times , laundry 3 times and dining room twice . They do not all blow at the same time . We have tried different types & brands of bulbs but they just keep blowing . We do not have any problems in the rest of the house . I asked an electrician about it and he said its a power supply problem , we are to close to a sub station and there is nothing he can do about it .    I find it very hard to believe that there is not a wiring problem . Any advise is appreciated .

----------


## spartan

Loose neutral?

----------


## Bros

I believe the electrician is correct. The filament of lamps are very susceptible to overvoltage and being near a substation you would experience voltages at the top limit at times. Check your voltage at various times of the day and report back but I suspect that the voltage at about 6pm would be quite high.

----------


## ericks

I agree with Bros, have you had any other equipment in the house that faulted?

----------


## applied

You should source some rough service bulbs they are similar to the phased out filament type but they are excempt because they fall in a special class designed to withstand heat,viberation and general punishment these are the type found in microwaves and ovens. Plus many have a voltage range between 220 and 260v 
You can get them in the same shapes and sizes as standard house globes
They are a little more expensive so maybe just buy a couple and try them as a cheap fix. 
I doubt its a wiring problem You could also consider a overvoltage aresstor to protect some of the other equipment in your house 
I see your in SA so call a place in Adelaide called pj white they only sell globes and may have some suggestions.

----------


## Smurf

Using a dimmer, and always running a little below maximum, is one simple way to fix an over voltage problem. 
Excess voltage and vibration are the big killers of incandescent or halogen lamps and voltage sensitivity is greater than you might expect. A few % change in the voltage makes a huge difference to the life of the globe.

----------


## breanna

Thaks for your replys and i understand what you are saying but what is confusing to me is that it is onlly the same 4 rooms that are blowing the bulbs.
There are 6 other rooms in the house that have not blown a globe for years.

----------


## applied

You will probably find those that blow are most likely closest to the switch board and or on the ground floor meaning there is less loss of power in the wires whitch may be why the problem is specific to certain rooms. 
Is there a reason to suspect the wiring and not the globes? (rental property, old house, Tight cheap light fittings, crappy diy?) 
A fault in the wiring wouldn't cause globes to blow more likely they wouldn't work at all or would dim.  
The other cause could be crappy quality globes, make sure your using Phillips brand or better  and they need to ones that are rated at 250volts not less.  
The other cause could be either frequent switching or bad luck.  
Now you know that the solution may be as simple as using a bulb with a transformer like a energy fluro either in a bulb replacement or new fittings like oyster round fluros.

----------


## Eastwing

> loose neutral?

     +1

----------


## iconnect

> but what is confusing to me is that it is onlly the same 4 rooms that are blowing the bulbs.
> There are 6 other rooms in the house that have not blown a globe for years.

  Are the 4 rooms which keep blowing on a different light circuit than the other 6? If you have eliminated lamps from the equation I'd be getting your sparky to look into a loose neutral connection somewhere either at the switchboard for that circuit or at a common point in the circuit for the 4 rooms.
A sufficiently loose or heat damaged neutral will kill lamps just as quick as over voltage.

----------


## Tools

Why would a loose neutral cause lamps to blow? 
Tools

----------


## applied

If you had a loose main neural and high earth resistance on three phase it would increase the voltage applied to the globes significantly. 
Where as in single phase circiuts like lighting a significant loose neutral heats and acts as a resistor in series effectively lowering the voltage to the globe. The low voltage makes it blow sooner 
That's essentially the reasoning for suspecting a loose neutral but im not completely convinced as there has been no mention of the usual symptoms they flicker, pulsate or dim also.

----------


## elkangorito

> If you had a loose main neural and high earth resistance on three phase it would increase the voltage applied to the globes significantly. 
> Where as in single phase circiuts like lighting a significant loose neutral heats and acts as a resistor in series effectively lowering the voltage to the globe. *The low voltage makes it blow sooner.*

  Applied, I think you have made a slight error...a high voltage makes incandescent lamps blow sooner.

----------


## Ozcar

Halogen lamp life may be reduced by either increased _or_ decreased voltage, but we are not talking about those here, are we?

----------


## applied

> Applied, I think you have made a slight error...a high voltage makes incandescent lamps blow sooner.

  Sorry appologies then I obviously thought when you put a globe and a resistance (for example a loose neutral connection at the battern holder) in series the voltage was shared proportionally depending on the resistance values and that houses had fixed voltages.  
Could you please explain the hightened voltage you speak about. 
And yes Oscar we are most globes are now halogen and need to reach there designed temp to create a halogen cycle and achieve max life span, I was once told by a rep increasing or decreasing the designed voltage bu 5% halves the life span.

----------


## petersemple

No helpful advice to offer, but I was assuming CFL bulbs.  I have had these blow quickly when it was a cheap brand.  Guess we need to know more.

----------


## breanna

Thanks for all the replys . All the light fittings in question are old battern holders except one in the hallway which is a new recessed type which takes a large fluro bulb sort of like flood light size , in the battern holders we have tried incandescent , halogen & fluro .  When the incandescent & halogen blow they still appear to be brand new inside apart from the broken filament . The fluros on the other hand look discoloured with a brown band around the base . There is only one lighting circuit , but it does appear these lights are closest to the meter / fuse box . The meter was replaced 18 months ago ( Because the original 1958 meter was humming loudly ) .  I don't know whether all this adds up to anything . any advice appreciated.

----------


## Ricardito

that is possible a electricity supply problem as the electrician specified in such cases call your supplier not the biller  and ask for a supply measuring device that will read the current supply fora week and will determine where the fault is.

----------


## China

Contact the office of the technical regulator and have them come out and check it out, if it is a supply problem then E.T.S.A. will have to fix it

----------


## elkangorito

> Could you please explain the hightened voltage you speak about.

  Quite simply, it's Ohm's Law. If the supply voltage is too high, the current through the lamp will be higher than its 'design' current. 
With regard to a faulty neutral connection, 'arcing' can create high currents & high voltages.

----------


## sparkie12

We had the same problem, and I got so sick of changing the lights all the time so installed LED downlights. We got them from Brightgreen and haven't had any problems and I think the light is far better. There website is Brightgreen | Universally Dimmable LED Downlights

----------


## chalkyt

Just read the thread and thought I would throw two bobs worth of info into the dodgy neutral theory. A couple of years ago when we moved into our current rural place (with a 3 phase supply) I noticed that some lights got brighter when appliances etc were turned on. (Just the opposite to what you might expect, eh!). 
It turned out that the  fault was a completely floating neutral (broken stud at the point of attachment) so we effectively had a neutralless three phase supply with 240V between active and neutral only when the load on each phase was the same. As soon as the load on a phase changed, so the out of balance current at the neutral "connection" changed and so did the voltage between "active" and "neutral". So, we were getting more than 240V across the lighting circuit. 
All a bit technical but also all a bit scary since potentially we could have ended up with close to 415V across some 240V devices.  :Yikes2:

----------


## danielhobby

had the same problem in my last place.three phases spread over different circuits thru home and shed and all voltages came in at 256 volts,used to blow lots and lots of incandescent globes :Cry:

----------

