ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades This is rather strange

BTW,
For the benefit of our NZ members and readers,
I thought I would relate this little tale about CF lamps.
My next door neighbour (an elderly lady), rang me up in a huge panic yesterday evening, as I was about to go off to work, saying that one of her lights was on fire.
Naturally, a fire in a light would take precedence over having a first cup of coffee and a smoke at work.
I got there and she had turned the thing off but there was still smoke coming out of it.
Apparently, like most elderly people here, she is on a fixed pension and wanted to reduce her power bill, so therefore got her son to purchase and install some "Energy-Saving" lamps.
Now, I rang the son once I got to work and asked him where he got the lamps, because I'd never heard of this brand before and he said he bought them at ************.
(Think Red Shed, folks)
Now here is a pic of the lamp that had burned out:




You will note that in the top middle of the photo, that there is blackening near where the spiral tube exits the body of the lamp.
Apparently, the lamp got quote "very bright and then there was a large bang and lots of smoke".
I could smell the smoke as soon as I walked in the front door, armed with a CO2 Fire Extinguisher just in case.
For those of you that may have these lamps, here is a pic of the brand and type number:





{Sorry about the poor colour quality of these pics, my camera is having a bad hair day}

If you do have them, remove them, they may be a bad batch or whatever, but from what I've just said, they could pose a fire risk, especially if they are being used as an un-attended security lighting source.
I'm going to go down to the vendor of these lamps later on today as I believe that this should not be happening with a lamp that is only 2 months old, or any lamp for that matter.
I'll keep you folks posted.

{Message edited to fix up typo's}


[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 10-20-2006).]

They sell some strange, interesting, and downright tacky things there. Always have a wander through if I'm going past with time to spare...but I often wonder about the electrical things they sell there and what approvals they may have been subjected to. Last catalog had a toaster for just under $10 which is hard to comprehend. While I've never bought CFL's there I have noticed incandescent bulbs that aren't fused in the stem. Actually, before I forget, have we heard about the HPM power points? Apparently there was a Chinese forgery of the local product. http://www.current.com.au/news/article/LVHZBYNUQJ.html
I wonder if a certain hardware chain has been selling them.

Thanks Mike for the fire safety advise.
I make a note of the brand, and will tell our crews on monday that certain brand of these lamps may have a potential for a fire.
It could have been a bad batch but you never know.

My Philips CFL lamps in the lounge have done 12447 hrs and still going well, a little blackening can be noticed at the end but the light output is good.

I personnaly don't like unknown branded lamps from unknown manufacturers.

240,
Yeah mate,
How on earth can you build, test and manufacture and give decent quality control to an item that will sell at the store for $10??.
I do know that appliances are made as cheap as dirt these days, which is a shame, because at the end of the day, the consumer is not getting the life span out of an appliance that they would have expected say, 10 years ago.
And we have had this argument here before, you can't fix anything economically anymore.
There is actually an Electronics Tech here working at the local Service Station (Garage) for some ungodly wage, because he went out of business because the companies he used to service TV's and the like for, got meaner and meaner with respect to manuals and the price of replacement parts.
I know this guy well and he is a top class technician, but he is too over-priced for the "throw-away" society we live in these days.
We had a problem with our (get this RODALCO), new Plasma screen TV at the Fire station about a month ago, the guy woke me up at 9am to have me let him in, he was done by 9:10 and this was not a small fault, apparently the unit had a lot of dry joints in it, he even showed me and I agreed.
It was still under warranty but he said it was hard to get warranty payments out of a lot of companies these days.
I think that is what killed his business in the end, suppliers don't like being not paid and if the companies that you are servicing gear for with-hold money until they have to pay, what is the guy in the middle supposed to do?.
This is not good, it's totally up-side down from what it was a few years back.
I don't like where we are heading.

RODALCO,
That is not a problem at all mate,
I'd sooner institute a warning rather than wait for results from the vendor.
I've also put a warning on the FireNet for people to watch out for.
I'm first and fore-most a FF, secondly an Electrician.
If this could cause people harm, that source of harm should be eliminated, as far as possible.
Good call on telling your crews, Ray, the more people that know the risk, the better off we all are.
BTW, with the large amount of smoke that issued from that lamp, the smoke detector in the house never triggered.
That needs to be rectified.

Did the smoke alarm have a working 9 volts battery ?
No doubt that you checked that, but just in case.

Ray,

I installed in not only my own house, but I asked my nieghbours if they wanted permanently wired smoke alarms, I said that you lose protection once the battery runs down, hence the chirping that I've heard when doing the odd domestic job.
Now, they all went for it and I did the install.
I was paid almost nothing, but I didn't do it for the money.
With houses being joined together there is a real risk of inter-house fires occuring if a fire did start in one of the town-houses.
Think of the common roof space and convected heat, add to that tar based building paper.
It's very hard working in a roof space with BA on in a lot of older houses.
Even getting through the Man-hole can be a task.