Why do lights bulbs burn out so quickly?

Question

Does it have to do with the wiring,the electricty or the quality of the light bulbs itself?

Answer 1

Because they create heat and the tungsten filament burn out. Try the new spring type compact fluorescent. It will save money and be brighter and cooler.n

Answer 2

It has mostly to do with heat. A 100 watt bulb will burn itself out much quicker than a 60. Also if it is enclosed as in a globed fixture make a lot of diff. Brand names mean nothing. Its all about how hot the bulb operates.
The flourecent bulbs are no better, just a whole lot more expen$ive
Light is light and unless your working in an operating room, its better to use a low wattage bulb like a 60 or even a 40

Answer 3

The bulbs in our new house burned out a lot faster than those inthe previous house. I put an APS power supply on the PC and installed their power line monitoring software - only available on certain APS models. I got weeks of logs showing long periods of 130 volts (120 is nominal but the way the elec co controls this is not so precise, they do their best) and we had lots of surges to as much as 135. ANSI standard C84.1 requires the elec co to deliver to you at 95% to 105% of nominal (114V to 126V)

When we remodeled we upgraded our service and the power company had to redesign the distribution in the neighborhood. We ended up with much more stable power and our light bulbs last far longer now, like three times as long. Even without a service upgrade I think you could use a log of high voltage and spikes to beg the power company into fixing up your drop.

Short of that there are 'rough service' light bulbs made for lights where there is a lot of vibration and there are 130V light bulbs made for locations with slightly high voltage.

There are other potential issues. The power to your house is actually 240V center tapped. Electricians are supposed to try to balance the load across both legs of the service so that neutral current is low, but as houses age and people mess with them you can get to where there's a lot of load on one leg. If your neutral has some resistance in the connection then the current from the heavily loaded leg will want to go through whatever laods are currently turned on in the lightly loaded leg and this will raise the voltage. In the worst case your neutral can fail completely and if you have just a small light on one leg and just a huge space heater on the other then the light is going to see 200+ volts and die fast. A smaller version of this happens when you have two circuits that go to a far part of the house on one 3 wire cable (two hots and one neutral) and then split off to diferent loads. If that neutral fails and those loads are not well balanced... So is it certain lights in your house that burn out a lot - or all of them?

Every time you change a light bulb write the date inside the fixture in pencil. They should go 2000 hours, so when one dies check the date of the last one, estimate how many hours a day you run that light, see if you got your 2000 hours. Maybe it's all in your head :-)

Answer 4

Can be all of the above, it's the surge of electricity when you turn it on, the more this happens the greater liklihood of burning out, even brown outs (such as if the circuit it's on is overloaded or grounding out somewhere) will make it shorter lived. Vibrations, like a door slamming next to it, while hot can snapthe filament too. More expensive bulbs with built in resistance or alternative energy saving bulbs using inert gas instead of filaments last longer.

Answer 5

depends on how it is burning out, and how frequntly. If it's blowing with a poping sound and a flash, also the bulbs are blackened, it's either not grounded, or not grounded and recieving a surge throught the neutrals (White wires) from anther applinace, or even another circiut. In many cases, an enclosed cieling light in the middle of a room in the center of a house is a major junction for many neutral return wires.

Answer 6

it's because of the voltage going through the coil inside the light bulb. when the voltage is too great it will cause the metal to super heat and snap. that's why you should check the light bulb for the correct wattage so it'll last longer.

Answer 7

to make us go buy more lightbulbs... but if you have a surge in electric, it can effect the life of the bulb. cheap bulbs are not ever worth it, costs ya more in the long run.

those new energy saving lightbulbs (the ones with the curly tops) i have been trying lately. i have yet to replace one of those bulbs in quite some time. electric bill went down slightly (with lots of those bulbs all over the house). to me, thats worth the price of those bulbs.

Answer 8

if they didnt burn out the light bulb makers would go out of lbusiness

Answer 9

Quality. The more they burn out the more you buy. Why would they want to change that?
Ever notice how most things quit after the warrenty expires? They build them that way.

Answer 10

no, bulb companies want to sell more bulbs