Two more light bulb questions

When you buy light-bulbs, they should have rating for the number of hours life which can be expected from that bulb. Nine hundred hours ain't very damned long. Whether or not you need 100 watts depends on whether or not you need to be able to see well while in your garage. If you just want to avoid tripping over things, and don't do any work in the garage, 60 or even 40 watts should suffice. As for what the socket in the garage will handle, that would depend upon your electrical wiring and who did it and how. It if uses a standard THHN wiring such as one sees in most domestic applications these days, a 100 watt bulb should not be a hazard. It also depends on the socket and its age and construction.

I suggest buying bulbs and paying attention to the number of hours life advertised on the packaging. Then run several of them, and determine by how much they are missing the stated life expectancy. If they burn out significantly sooner than you would expect, consult an electrician. They can put a tester on the line to look for voltage fluxuations, and can look at your wiring (oten open and in plain sight in a garage) as well as the circuit box where the main power drop enters the premises.

I doubt if you have a big problem, though, so you'll need to decide if paying an electrician is cheaper in the long run than buying a lot of bulbs. To time the life of the bulb correctly, you'll need to know just exactly how long the bulb burns every day. Does it get turned on outside the timing cycle? Can it be turned on and left on without reference to the timing cycle? We have at least one electrician here, so i'll try to send him a private message and ask him to look at this thread.

Bulbs are sensible to differences of temperatures. Are there any draughts in the garage? Has the bulb a plastic or glass enclosure?

Draughts reduce the life expectancy of bulbs.

I can't think of much to add. Maybe a few points

Are other bulbs in the house lasting as long as should be expected? If so it would not be very likely you have problems with the service, but if you are worried or not sure, you may want to call a pro.

Compact florescents should do very well when left on all the time, and they do not draw much power, so they are generally a safer choice than incandescents if you are worried about such things.

100 watts is pretty standard for many incandescent fixtures, but the exact rating should be on the fixture somewhere. I have seen some of the cheaper incandescent fixtures that were rated at 100 watts get hot and discolored though.

At home I had to try a few different manufactures of compact florescents before I found a brand that lasted as promised. Philips are usually good but some of the cheap ones suck, so I had to take back quite a few too. Come to think of it, I had some cheap incandescent bulbs I took back last year because they did not last as promised either.

Normally you would have to have some rather extreme temperature changes before a light bulb's life span was seriously affected.

This garage is part of an apartment building. I live in California, and it is very common to have carport and garages underneath the apartments. I have lived in this apartment for about 10 years, but I have no idea when it was constructed. Based on the age of the stove, I'd have to say it was built in the 1970's. I know the age of the stove, because I had a cracked oven door and called several appliance repair places.

As to Francis' comment about draughts, I guess California is considered a rather dry climate. Our normal temperature ranges from about 75 during the day to 57 at night during the spring.

My garage is on the same timer as the rest of the lights surrounding the outside of the building. I have no capability to turn on/off the light because there is no switch inside the garage. The lights normally pop on around 7:30pm and I have no clue when they turn off.

"Normally" is not statistically obvious, Chumly.

We made tests that showed than more then 10% percent of the bulbs collapsed (went off?) when the temperature suddenly fall of 5 Celsius degrees...
(Like in a draught).

Well they do have an operating temperature range but I have never noticed any correlation between bulbs used outdoors and ones used indoors (for example) in over 30 years FWIW.

In your tests, did you use high quality long life name brand modern light bulbs like what I can get here in Canada?

What controls did you use to ensure you did not have bad batches, as I have certainly seen this.

What types of bulbs did you test, incandescent, long life, heavy duty, compact florescent, halogen, etc.

Testing done by an independent third party lab or some such?

When did you perform these tests and how long did the tests last?

I am not saying you are wrong or right nor that your tests were done well or not, just interested.

lightbulbs
there are special "industrial grade" light-bulbs on the market ; i doubt that you'll find them at walmart .
they are not cheap (up to $12 a piece) but should last a long time .
one goes under the name of 'armorbulb' , but there are many other industrial grade bulbs available .
usually they also use more power ; a 100 watt industrial bulb might use as much as 150 watt regular bulb.
check with a industrial supply store .
hbg

and welcome to a2k !

Sure but why bother when a good compact fluorescent should out last an incandescent with no problems, plus as you say the HD bulbs can be power hungry.

lightbulbs
chumley : i don't know much about electrical stuff , but have noticed that canadian tire still sells 'industrial' type regular bulbs - 130 volt rated ?
some noma fluorescent bulbs i purchased didn't last much longer than a year .
some of the 'old-style' phillips fluor. seem to last forever (the big circular ones). hbg

We surely used almost every brand on the European market and many of them I know are sold on the Canadian market.

In order to conduct the tests impartially, the bulbs were bought at different times from differents suppliers.

Any usual type of bulb was tested. The figures I gave you were for incandescent type.

Tests undertaken by a national laboratory from a power producer not connected with bulbs makers.

Most of the tests lasted for 300 hours and were conducted under temperatures between -25° C and 70°C with sudden rises and falls.

bulbs
can a statement like this be trusted ?
what do the experts say ? (i don't want to wait 20,000 hours !)
hbg

Heavy-Duty Light Bulbs
These heavy-duty bulbs are built like mini-fortresses with unusually sturdy tungsten filaments plus two lead wires and five support wires to absorb shock. The average life of a heavy-duty bulb is 20,000 hours. From a leading manufacturer of specialty bulbs. Made in the USA.

bulbs
found under 'lightbulb jokes' - there must be hundreds of them !

Q: How many Bush Administration officials does it take to screw in a
light bulb?
A: None. There is nothing wrong with the light bulb; it's condition is
improving every day. Any reports of it's lack of incandescence are
totally unfounded, and the result of delusional "spin" assaults from the
fanatic, elitist, liberal media. That light bulb has served honorably,
and anything you say undermines the lighting effect and dims it's ego.
Why do you hate freedom?

Hey Francis,
Thanks for the info, perhaps I have not noticed because I live in a moderate climate and virtually all exterior bulbs I have dealt with are in enclosed fixtures. Or maybe French bulbs are just plain fickle and like to blow when the mood strikes them but Canadian bulbs are strong and true.

Hey hamburger,
That's a good question. I can tell you that vibration and turning the bulb on and off reduces total life span. Also the Canadian tire Home Depot etc. 'industrial' type regular bulbs have done very well in my trouble lights which get banged around all the time. Regular bulbs die very quickly in that environment.

Purchase lamps which are rated at 130 V. I have an idea that you have a power surge problem in that particular area, although that should effect your entire house. This can be caused by a switch that is mal-functioning and spiking the lamp. Change out the switch, not the lamp. Slow starting switches like X-10 will extend the life of a lamp up to six times. They are worth the price. They apply the power in what is referred to as a "soft start." They also can be controlled by remote sending devices.

Incandescent bulbs
The rated lifespan for incandescent bulbs is about 900 hours. So, it sounds like if you use incandescent you can plan on changing them out every three months. Compact fluorescent should last 8-10,000 hrs. I would recommend using compact fluorescent bought from home depot. Mark the date you install them on the base, keep the receipt, and take them back to home depot for a refund if they do not come close to what they are rated.

welcome to a2k adarling !
yes , i have been marking the installation date on the bulbs for some years .
i have found that the old 'circular' fluorescent bulbs (phillips brand) are almost indestructible - some were installed in the early 90's and while they are a little dimmer , they are still 'alight' .
sure , they aren't the compact type but they last .
hbg

Fluctuations in power supply can affect bulb life. I think this is called voltage drop.

I notice in my very old house that when the refrigerator kicks in some lights in the back of the house dim a lttle.
My electrician explained this by saying the line into the house was not big enough to carry enough electricity to supply all the electrical needs of my home. he told me the most obviouse indication of this would be bulb life.

Don't buy any light bulbs from Home Depot. They are manufactured for them to their specs and they lie like hell about lamp life. It seems as well as China, Indonesia, Malasia and other countries do well in putting together computers, there is something about winding an efficient and effective lamp filament that still eludes them. It does further harm to have a large chain store tell them to make them as cheaply as possible so they have a larger profit margin. Home Depot is one of the worst offenders.

Want a good lamp? Look for the USHIO brand, especially their German and Belgium lamps, but their Japanese lamps are also quite good. They manufacture the bulk of the halogen peanut lamps that are in nearly all other manufacturer's lamp packages.

It also effects lamp life if the switch is arcing (even if it isn't shorting out) when you turn it off and on. Change the light switch. They are not expensive and even the Chinese imports are not bad.

Been to a movie lately? USHIO manufactures the projectors and the lamps for motion picture projection. Of course, I'm please that their Southern California facility is about five minutes from my house and I will call frequently.