I finished trimming out a new house about 6 weeks ago. Everyody was happy. I got a call from the homeowner today about his bulbs burning out. It is mainly the can lights. They are burning out all over the house. app 40 cans. They are 6in junos. I did purchase the bulbs at lowes. They had the Sylvania 65w, 120 volt floods at $1 each. Good money savings so I thought. The problem would problably be solved with 130 volt bulbs. However, they did change one bulb and the new bulb "exploded" in the room which brings concern to the homewner. They also had 2 incandescent bulbs on porch fixtures go bad. It is a new house, ch panel and breakers. Any ideas would be appreciated.

What is the voltage? When it starts getting up in the 125 range, bulbs go fast.

Any dimmers on the can lights?

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Vibration also shortens bulb life. Any mosh pits or marching bands practicing in the house?

Overheating the bulb also shortens life. Does the bulb packaging state anything about burn base up or down?

Do the occupants work swing or night shifts? Increased voltage at night can also wreak havoc.

I haven't checked any voltage yet. I got the call today and am trying to get ideas before I troubleshoot.

There are no dimmers and they do live next to the hospital with helicopter traffic. It is however, a solid house with minimal vibration. I will check the voltage. If it is over 120v, should I recommend that he use only 130v bulbs.

Would the increase voltage cause the bulb to explode. The shrapnel was a concern for them.

Bulb envelope failure may be from severe overvoltage, but IMHO not in your case. BTW, dimmers help bulb life dramatically!

Also, IMHO the old addage of 'ya get what ya pay for' applies to bulbs.

I have heard complaints from friends about 230v 50W GU10 halogens exploding. The challenge was to find all the bits! These were 'quality' replacements for the original chinese bulbs that expired after 2000 odd hours. Could be a bad batch? BTW, low-energy bulbs must be switched on for a minimum of 15 minutes, or their life will the same as a tungsten filament bulb. That's a challenge in some locations [bathroom, wc etc. ] and a halogen fitting would be better.

Hotine, you are right about buying the cheaper bulbs. I will probably replace his bulbs or give him some kind of a credit. Lesson learned.

You can also have a loose neutral problem that wreaks all sorts of havoc but blown bulbs is one of them. Check both rails to neutral and be suspicious if they are not exactly the same. Try tripping a couple of the breakers on one phase while watching the voltage and see if it changes but go slow, just do one and watch for a while. If you do have a neutral problem the change can be real sudden, blowing up everything on the less loaded phase.

I've heard a theory bandied about in the last few years regarding cheap incandescent lamps and their extremely short life-spans (some I've heard are measured in milli-seconds).
What was being said, was that the reason behind the failure is caused by the glass envelope of the bulb not being evacuated properly and there still being air inside the bulb.
Now, everyone knows that a light-bulb filament needs to be in a pretty good vacuum otherwise it's life is pretty short-lived (we even tried this at Night School).

I don't know how much one can actually read into such a theory, but it does make you sort of wonder.

I don't think they really have a vacuum in there, it is filled with an inert gas like argon but the same principle applies. If they didn't get all the air out, this is a flash bulb.

Kids, back in the olden days we had these things called flash bulbs used in cameras

Jeez, I used to have problems like that with GE’s incandescent bulbs all the time, but Sylvania was always very good. Are they by chance making their bulbs in Mexico or China now? That could be the root of the problem.
A couple of years back, I had problems with a whole case of some generic brand of 100W bulbs I bought from HD Supply that were made in Mexico. The solder blob on the side of the base was so big I had to file it down to get them to screw into the fixture sockets. Needless to say, I never bought those bulbs again.

Its fun when you get the big boxes selling seconds.

I remember the first Home Depot that opened in Winnipeg having bulbs loose in a cardboard box the size of a chest freezer. Probably had a couple of thousand 60 watts in there.

It was one of the major brands which I can't remember now but they were selling them loose for 15 cents each and no cardboard shell around them, you put them in paper bag like fresh vegetables.

Came back a few days later and they were all gone. I always wondered how long those bargain bulbs lasted once they were installed.

Dollar Tree has switched to selling Sylvania 4-packs; wonder how the performance of those are versus the former Sunbeam variety, and Sylvanias bought from other stores.

Our own people select the product, import it, sell it and use it. Good products are available, too, but it costs a little more and we won't put up with that.

I had that problem in my very own house. The POCO thought that they did me a favor by putting the transformer on a pole right near my house. The problem is that now I have high voltage in my house. The voltage ranges from 123 to about 126 volts. My bulbs never lasted long. I had to switch to a 130 volt bulb in order to make them last.

My living room ceiling is very high 18'-25' and changing them was a pain. I finally had to go to CFL bulbs. They can at least handle the higher voltage with out failing every other week.

What really stinks is that even if we are willing to pay extra for a higher quality domestically made product, in many cases, they have made it exceedingly difficult to actually find them.

I have no complaint about my incandescent bulbs, most are dimmer controlled which helps. The yellow bug bulbs seem to be dying at a much shorter life, probably due to poor quality. I don't know what brand they are at the moment.

As to bying domestic products, I'm all for that...but...it's real tough to find a lot of items made in the good ol' USA.

Heck, take all the imported clothing out of a Macy's store...and I bet it would be close to empty!

KJay,

I find that many supply houses are not stocking much inventory anymore. You almost have to go in and place an order to get the material you need. I guess the small supply houses can't compete with the big box stores.

City Electric here in SW Florida has been real good about getting any kind of special bulbs my wife needs at a price that competes well with the internet guys.
She uses lots of bulbs, all different types, running a country club and 800 door HOA.
Getting the 130v version makes them last a real long time. That is important if they are hard to get to.