ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Lampholder orientation?

I visited an older home in which the living room was indirectly lighted by a half-dozen incandescent bulbs above a soffit. The effect was very pleasing, but it got me wondering...

Those porcelain keyless lampholders are often mounted on garage walls or bulb-down on ceilings, but this was the first time I'd seen them mounted bulb-up. Is this an "approved" orientation? I don't see any mention of it in the lampholder data sheets.

Maybe I'm just being paranoid, and maybe it's not much different from a table or floor lamp, but I'm thinking about the hazard of foreign objects falling into an empty socket.

How would I find out if the UL listing restricts these to a specific orientation?

Thanks,
J.C.

I see nothing in the UL Information Directory (White Book) limiting lampholders to any orientation.
The lampholders would certainly run cooler base down than base up, providing longer life for both the lamp and the socket.
Creighton

Ironically enough, UL really doesn't care about lampholder orientation, with two exceptions:
First, they really frown on outdoor fixtures being constructed so as to accumulate water in the socket, or for cold rain to hit a hot bulb. So "bulb up" is an issue with wet location lights.
The other concern is heat. There are many, many fixtures out there that can be mounted in any position EXCEPT bulb DOWN, as the top gets too hot and melts the socket. You will likly find this restriction on the cheap "bulkead style" fixtures sold at the box stores.

A "side project" of mine is constructing a replacement for this towns' Hannukah menorah. One of the problems with the existing one is that the 'bulbs up' arrangement makes it an electrocution waiting to happen every time it rains!

Reno, just how big is that menorah? Is low-voltage the answer? It never ceases to amaze me that line-voltage Christmas light sockets can be strung outdoors any which-way, without any apparent problems.

Thanks to both for your comments.

Back in college they had bare porcelin lampholders mounted on the walls in the stairwells in the dorms. Bulb up position. Sooner or later a student needs to replace a burnt out light bulb in his desk lamp late at night, so the easiest thing to do is steal a bulb from the stairway. And some students didn't bother to install the dead bulb in its place. Later on some fool decides it's great fun to make some sparks by dropping a penny into the upwards facing empty lampholder that still has power on it...

Later on the college replaced all those lampholders with something indestructable, something likely used in jails...



[This message has been edited by wa2ise (edited 02-24-2006).]