could it be how they are installed... perhaps they are being slightly damaged at the time of installation (like a tiny fracture to the glass) - and just happen to give out on her??

I also know that you should not handle a globe by the 'bulb' section, as the oils off your hand create a 'hot spot' on the surface and can lead to cracking...

Years ago a friend of mine had the same problem, they were in a semi rural / industrial area. During the day the volts were 240-250 but at night went to 265 at times, this lasted for years .... untill the electric company put a transformer at the end of the street.
Just a question do your neighbours have the same sort of problems?

Has she got sweaty hands?

It's a 'green' conspiracy to force you to buy compact flourescent lightbulbs & LEDs...

...or maybe the budget bulbs you're buying just don't cut the mustard?

personally...I'd be getting a sparky in to check it out before any zappy-zappy!

Not quite the same thing but, my other half regularly gets strong static shocks. In the car at the shops from the kids in the play ground ect. Its sounds a bit funny but she really hates it! There must be an explination other than coincedence?

dodgy wiring. is your place old? happens to me all the time, need to replace old wiring fittings and switchs.

have you had some cheap insulation put in recently? check for fried installer in the roof space

FlySurfer said...

So here's the deal.
The Mrs keeps blowing light bulbs... easy fool, not that kind of blowing!

Doesn't happen every day but maybe twice a month... but I haven't blown any in at least a year or even 2.

Up until now they've been the normal incandescent bulbs, but last night she blew a bunch of halogen ones, and the circuit breaker needed to be reset.

In fact this kind of stuff happens so frequently that she knows how to reset the breakers herself.

The only difference I can identify is that she's always walking around bear foot, where as I wear thongs, and that may create a static charge... but she doesn't shock me.
I also figured maybe she doesn't engage the switch to well causing an electric arc in the switch.

Can any of you think of any other reasons she keep blowing the lights?

Thanks.

Incandescent bulbs are much more likely to blow when they are cold, so is it more likely that she is the first to turn those lights on before anyone else? I expect halogens are the same.

As Gizmo pointed out, the mains voltage does tend to vary between different times of the day based on load, so that would make it worse. I think you used to be able to get incandescents rated for a slightly higher voltage to limit this effect, but I am not sure if this is the case or even possible with halogens?

Did she blow a few halogens in the one night? If so, I think you would have to look at the voltage at that time, as its highly unlikely that you would get two to randomly blow on the same day, let alone more, unless there was an external cause.

Just as a reference, I have three halogen lights in three ceiling fans, with two lights linked to a 'soft-start' fan remote control, and another just switched directly. The soft-start ones are still on their original bulbs, yet the one that is switched directly has blown. I expect the soft start ones will outlast the other easily.

FBRoy said...

GypsyDrifter said...

Point one:- We have an evaporative air con in this home...and it does not work well on humid days...the one thing I notice is if we have a couple of humid days in a row..and we blow light bulbs manly in the middle of the house were there is no direct sunlight.

GD, do you know how evaporative air conditioners work? It's not surprising that it doesn't work well on humid days.. :)

evaps work fine i humid conditions if you open mre windos and let the air flow OUt of the house, even if you get up and do a big effort and opedn a load of window wide every couple of hours. By not maintaining a good airflow your just increasing the humidity and heat.

landyacht said...

FBRoy said...

GypsyDrifter said...

Point one:- We have an evaporative air con in this home...and it does not work well on humid days...the one thing I notice is if we have a couple of humid days in a row..and we blow light bulbs manly in the middle of the house were there is no direct sunlight.

GD, do you know how evaporative air conditioners work? It's not surprising that it doesn't work well on humid days.. :)

evaps work fine i humid conditions if you open mre windos and let the air flow OUt of the house, even if you get up and do a big effort and opedn a load of window wide every couple of hours. By not maintaining a good airflow your just increasing the humidity and heat.

landyacht said...

FBRoy said...

GypsyDrifter said...

Point one:- We have an evaporative air con in this home...and it does not work well on humid days...the one thing I notice is if we have a couple of humid days in a row..and we blow light bulbs manly in the middle of the house were there is no direct sunlight.

GD, do you know how evaporative air conditioners work? It's not surprising that it doesn't work well on humid days.. :)

if it is humid they don't work well at all, they work of the principle of evaporation. the water running through the unit needs to evaporate to absorb heat from the air pasing through the unit. if the ambient air is already saturated, this evaporation orchange of state for the water can not occur or does so minimaly.

evaps work fine i humid conditions if you open mre windos and let the air flow OUt of the house, even if you get up and do a big effort and opedn a load of window wide every couple of hours. By not maintaining a good airflow your just increasing the humidity and heat.

Q. How many ADD kids does it take to change a lightbulb?

A. "dude let's go skateboarding........."

Hey this should be a thread in it's own right?

Greenroom said...

For an $80 call out fee plus $110 an hour Id be happy to come and sort out your electrical problems.
But Im in Perth

$110 per hour You way off the mark. (Auto's in Hedland $200 per hour)
This is 2010 Greenie, not 1990. Your selling your skills way too low. And get rid of that blasted call out malarkey, just charge travel time and k's.

What's all this talk about static electricity and dodgey wiring blowing out light globes??
Formulanova made the only logical reply when he said that incandescent globes tend to blow out more when they are cold. Which of course is when they are first switched on.
Static electricity will not in any way cause an incandescent light globe to blow out because its most powerful jolt will be in the order of milliamps and the globe requires something in the order of amps to blow it out.
So, FlySurfer, even if your misses has "bear" feet (man I gotta see that. Post some pics please,) there is no way that she can cause them to blow out by static discharge.

Also, no matter how bad the wiring is it cannot cause the light to blow because all the arcing and sparking in the world cannot generate more than the 240 volts coming from the switchboard. It might cause your house to burn down but the lights will be fine.

CAUTION ! ACHTUNG!!!
This only applies to incandescent globes because they are are entirely resistive. No induction and no capacitance.
It does not apply to fluoro lights or the new compact fluorescent globes.
Also does not apply to tvs, refrigerators etc which certainly can be blown up by arcing and sparking wiring or switches, because they all represent a reactive load, i.e inductive or capacitive.

So, getting back to your Mrs with her "bear" feet blowing the light globes;
When a light globe filament is cold, it's resistance is very much lower than when it is turned on and white hot. A 100 watt light globe has a running resistance of about 550 ohms. Cold it will be about 10 percent of that, i.e about 50 ohms.
Which means when it is first turned on it will get a wack of about 10 times it's normal operating current until the filament reaches operating temperature.
If the filament is made to sloppy tolerances and the cross sectional area varies even a tiny bit, it will cause hot spots to develop in the filament and a disproportionate amount of the input voltage will be dissipated in that spot, causing it to blow out.
If the input voltage is slightly higher than the rated voltage of the light , this effect is greatly amplified.
Therefore, the only thing that determines the likelihood of who gets to deliver the fatal switching is how many times you have the honor of turning on the light, and what is the mains voltage a the time you turn it on.
The mains voltage is quite variable through the day and a 240 volt supply can typically go from 225 volts in peak load up to 260 volts off peak, so if your bear foot Mrs mostly turns on the lights in off peak times, say late at night, then she will pop more globes than you.

So the answer is, stop buying cheap and nasty light globes.
And get your Mrs to the doc to have her bear feet condition looked at.

Aliens do that. Your wife has been body snatched. Better keep your distance.

The 60- year- old grandmother seems to have a freakishly high level of static electricity coursing through her body.
She estimates she has destroyed 15 kettles in the last few years. Housework has also become a problem, with 20 irons and ten vacuum cleaners biting the dust after falling foul of her apparently supercharged touch....

Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-517487/Meet-Mavis-super-charged-grandmother-touch-BLOWS-UP-kettles.html


Bear foot !

here, she's just had her nails done.