A hallway in an apartment building burns out bulbs approximately every 3-4 weeks. Any ideas for troubleshooting? All other areas do not have any problem.

Bulbs are only rated for so many hours. Are your hall fixtures left on continuously? I am assuming they are incandescent bulbs. To increase bulb life, buy 130volt rated bulbs instead of 120volt rated. Also dimming greatly increases bulb life.

Is there something sending vibrations to the bulbs? For example another hallway above it or a heavy door nearby.

Check the wiring in the fixture, check the connections (riveted) at the socket base and look for vibration causes (doors). Older fixtures and those that have bulbs that are larger than the fixture is rated for will ruin the fixture wiring and cause the riveted socket connections to loosen.
Bob

Have you experimented with different types/brands of bulbs?

Try the "rough service" type light bulbs, the ones the auto mechanics use in their trouble lights when working on cars. Those bulbs take a beating and don't burn out easily.

The 130V suggestion mentioned earlier is good advice too.

Bye for now.

OK, we've covered the incandescent end.
Is this a fluorescent?
If so a ballast might be in order.

[This message has been edited by electure (edited 01-08-2003).]

In my apartment building the bulbs are burning out very frequently also. But the problem isn't electrical. It's the tennants who slam doors. It's one of those "angry" families with twentysomething kids living with their single mom who slam doors as a form of expression. If they can shake the building hard enough to knock pictures off my walls. Than it's not hard to understand that much force breaking a white hot filiment. Of course they don't slam doors on the rare occasions when the landlord is around, so he thinks he has an electrical problem too.

Thanks for letting me vent, I have to go lay down now.

Are you sure that the bulbs that are 'burning out' the same ones you put in shortly before???

i would suggest you stop bye an electrical supply house and pick up some 130 volts rought service bulbs.you will be surprise how much longer they will last.or for a few bucks more you can pick up a screw in fluorescent bulb....is the hall light on 24 hours a day????if so,go with the screw in fluorescent bulb if you can.

jes...i was thinking the same thing.

Next time you replace the bulbs....mark the new bulb before screwing it in. That way next time it "burns out," you can tell whether it was someone who swapped bulbs on you...or whether it's as you say - short lived bulbs.

If it is bulb swapping....I remember reading about a device that physically locks the bulb into the socket until you remove it with a special key (dunno if it will work with CFLs).

Or go with (more expensive) left-hand threaded sockets & bulbs

Do they make compact fluorecents with left-hand threads?

Watch out that the screw-based fluorescents don't "fail"/disappear faster.

Buddy,
What sort(type) of lamp are we talking about here?.
It sounds like you need a Surge Diverter in the Mains.

These are the same bulbs that are burning out each time and they are standard 60 watt incandescent bulbs.

FYI:

The 130-volt bulbs are sometimes seen at 99 cent stores at a buck for a three or four-pack. Look for brands like "Premier light bulbs" or "Trisonic" but check the bulbs themselves to make sure they're marked 130V.

I put two such light bulbs (60-watt) in a fixture in my apartment in the Summer of 2001 (when I moved in). They're still there, so they've lasted a year-plus!

The voltage in my building oscillates between 117 and 125 (higher late at night, lower in the morning).

That fixture is left on a lot - it's in the little entry-hallway.

Use 20,000 Hour Rated Lamps. The good one's are guaranteed for 2 years.....

They are not expensive if you know where to buy them...

If you don’t mind some input from an OSHA professor regarding troubleshooting or diagnostics, here goes.

A colleague of mine Haz-Mat professor from our national training institute had a similar problem at his complex / condo. So I offered to check it out for him. Symptoms include light bulbs blowing frequently from several minutes after being replaced to lasting only hours after being replaced.
Further discussions revealed that a vacuum cleaner had also burned out recently (smoking motor).

Armed with my various electrical testers, and PPE (FR clothing, safety glasses, and dielectric gloves (class O)) I preceded to garner diagnostic facts. (Doesn’t this sound like someone who trains investigators ?)

Facts established:
I tested the lamp outlet and it was 127 volts. Other receptacles in the apartment were 118 volts.
Back at the main panel (in the apartment) which was a single phase panel. Line to line measured 206 v and line 1 to neutral was 118v and line 2 to neutral was 128 v.

Conclusions:
What this told me was that the supply to this single phase panel was from a 3 phase transformer (208 v nominal).
That transformer obviously would also be used to supply other apartments. The voltages were fluxuating intermittently.
With out charting / monitoring the voltage for a period of time (data logger) there was no way to determine how high the voltage on that leg actually did climb to (could in fact be much higher than 127 at times) .

Additional / Final Conclusion: Intermittent Neutral connection on the transformer feeding apartments. The voltage on a particular leg could intermittently climb / fluxuate based upon the integrity of the transformer neutral connection and total apartment loads at any given time.

Solutions: Contact the utility (it’s their x-former) and advise them of the over voltage condition and ask them to check out the transformer connections which may need to be tightened / “cinched up” and tell my colleague to use 130 v bulbs in the meantime and those same bulbs would provide exceptionally long service life when the system was fixed and running at 120v nominal again.

Have you checked any voltages ? At the lamp which is failing prematurely? It is not unusual for these types of complexes to be fed from three phase x-formers and you know what loose neutral connections can cause. Combine that with the addition of intermittent conditions (the absolute worst situation to attampt to troubleshoot)it can be a hair pulling experience to say the least.

My philosophy is that: "unless you measure it you don't know anything about it" so some voltage measurements might be in order for troubleshooting purposes.
Yeah this professor can function outside of the classroom / lab environment (in the real world so to speak).
Hope this helps.
OSHA Professor - Grizzy