I am sick and tired of changing the kitchen light bulb. It seems like every month the bulb blows. I’m pretty sure it’s because this light is turned on and off probably at least five times a day. Shocking the element by turning it on and off so much is probably why it’s failing so often.

I tried using one of those florescent bulbs but I could never get used to the delay between flipping the switch and the light coming on. It eventually blew as well.

I looked at LED lights but $100 for a bulb is too high for me. I know there are bulbs that last a long time. My ceiling fan has had the same bulbs in it for 15 years and only one in four has blown. However they are only about 40 watts. There may also be a capacitor that ramps up the current in the fan so the elements aren’t shocked as bad.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

A long time ago I saw an add somewhere for a capacitor that was placed in the socket that reduced the shock to the element. Does anyone know if those work?

Maybe a debounce switch or something would help?

thanks

Incandescent bulb life is very much a function of voltage applied to the filament. This relationship is not linear. While lumens output is directly proportional to current consumed, a small reduction of voltage will give a very large increase in service life.

I don't remember the ratios any more, but I seem to recall that a reduction of 10% in voltage would increase service life of an incandescent bulb by a factor of six or more.

If your kitchen light bulb is failing as often as once a month, I suspect problems with your wiring, perhaps an arcing current in the switch, fixture, or wiring; or for whatever reason perhaps the voltage to that fixture is too high. Over-voltage has as much effect on bulb life as under-voltage, but in the inverse direction!

Put a meter on that light socket and see what is going on before you blame the bulbs themselves.

tanstaafl.

One thing you might try is, rather than purchasing a "normal" incadescent bulb, to instead get the "builder-grade" bulbs. These are typically rated for funny voltages (e.g., 130V), which means that you're running them below their official ratings and thus you may end up with longer bulb lifetimes.

Where to find such bulbs? In Houston, anyway, there's a funky store called "Light Bulb Depot" that carries every obscure sort of light bulb known to man. Every major city should have a place like that...

How about changing the switch for a dimmer ?

I use x10 dimmer switches from eBay (these are for the UK market of course, sure there will be a US version out there). Although I agree with the suggestion of checking the wiring first.

Cheers

Cris.

Get a florescent with a built in ballast resistor like these . The 27 watt ones are quite bright. Note that short burn durations shorten the life of florescent lights quite significantly.

I agree with this and Cris's suggestions. My parents' kitchen is certainly wired incorrectly. They have a two-way switch (one of which is a dimmer) controlling six or seven recessed lights. I think one bulb goes out at least every three weeks, which is just too often. I also don't think that when you put your hand to the plate on one of the switches it should feel warm. That just doesn't seem right either

Has anyone else found the compact fluorescent bulbs that are for recessed lighting do not last very long. I have had the regular spiral ones last for years but the ones enclosed in the reflector for the recessed sockets have only gone a few months. Maybe it's a heat thing ?

Exactly.

aka "Rough Service". Long life incandescent bulbs are around too which are typically gassed up with Krypton and have roughly double (5000hrs) the rated life of a normal bulb (2500hrs).

But as others have said, check your wiring especially the lamp socket and connections to see if anything has heated up and perished. You will probably want to use a meter as well since you say the CFL replacement lamps also don't last long. Good quality CFL lamps should last a decent while even with many on-off cycles. Were they branded ones?

Are the lamps enclosed in some kind of cover/reflector/shade?

Thanks for the suggestions.

I checked the voltage to the socket and it measures 125 Volts. I checked other outlets that work OK and the voltage is the same. I think the wiring is OK.

I’ll inspect the socket better too to see if it has corroded and is generating heat.

The light is enclosed in a probably 12” x 5” glass cover and air can’t circulate. It probably does get hotter in there than the rest of the house’s fixtures.

I do have a dimmer on the living room light and that one does last longer. I was thinking about putting a dimmer in the kitchen.

I’ll look up the other bulbs mentioned. I wish LED bulbs would come down a bit more in price.

That rules out most of the compact fluorescents on the market -- they don't like to get very hot.

But a regular incandescent bulb should really be fine, and a rough service (130V) bulb would do even better. Pretty much any home center or hardware store or lighting shop will have those on the shelves, in 50W or 60W versions. For higher wattages, you may be stuck with ordinary bulbs.

I was at Princess Auto on Saturday, and purchased several rough service bulbs there for 88 cents each (sale price). Some shops want as much as $3 for the same bulb..

Cheers

Oh, and price does sometimes matter, even for incandescent bulbs.

The cheaper 4/$1 varieties we get around here, generally do burn out much more quickly than some of the higher priced GE and Phillips bulbs.

Cheers

Thanks for the tip on the fluorescents. I’m not a big fan of the light a fluorescent puts out anyway.

I'll look around and see what I can find. It's sometimes hard cutting through all the BS to really get a heavy duty anything. Everyone says there stuff is the best.

If I can’t find a 100W I’ll wire it for two 50W’s

Many fixtures are only rated up to 60W. If you're putting a 100W bulb in there, it may be overheating. Of course, that doesn't explain why the CFL would blow, too, since its wattage is much lower.

Have you been using CFL-specific recessed fixtures and bulbs from this list:
http://www.pnl.gov/rlamps/

I'm curious because I want to add a bunch of recessed lighting to my new home and would very much like them to be CFL.

My home was actually delivered with CFL bulbs in every fixture except for two that have a dimmer by default - the dining room and master bedroom. I'll be replacing the fixtures, bulbs and dimmers this summer and hope to have every light source in the home running energy efficient luminaries.

The only place I can see using LED right now is for under the kitchen cabinets. That should come some time in the summer as well. The technology just isn't thee yet for general lighting, both in terms of performance and cost.

I don't know if they are compact fluorescent specific I doubt it they are just what the builder put in. I didn't even know there was such a thing I always thought the point of CFL was to allow any fixture to use fluorescent.

I don't know what specific bulbs I have had. I had GE but I don't know if it was that one.

I didn't think LED even used less energy than incandescent.

Hm, one of my kitchen LED's has gone after eighteen months, maybe they're not as good as I expected!

Just because a lamp is LED, doesn't mean its going to last a long time. LED lamp and control gear quality varies hugely. There are some LED fittings I have on display. Some excellent quality LEDs are on a timer, power up over 12hrs a day and are still going strong after 4 years. Others (especially certain cheap GU10 LED lamps) die in under 4 months.

And I'm sure that the LEDs themselves are just fine, but probably "just" the power supply that's gone bad.

Wow, I would expect an LED light to outlast me. Especially at the current prices.

I guess they have to be built to fail for profit reasons.

Oh, the LEDs there are probably still fine. It's all of the driver circuitry that's going to produce most failures.

Cheers