7w incandescent bulb in a 6w outlet?

[Christian77]

Good day, everyone,

I did my searches and couldn’t find anything concrete on this issue. I’d appreciate some help.

I’ve got one of those IKEA Tarnaby table lamps. The warning on the base where the bulb goes says it takes max 6 watts 120v, size e12.

I don’t like LED (personal choice), so I’ve decided to go with incandescent bulbs. It works fine with incandescents, my only issue is with safely going a single watt above the stated rating.

The unit has a dimmer, and it works with incandescents as well.

1. Can it safely take a 7 watt incandescent (same size and voltage, of course)? My reasoning is that it’s only a single watt above, so it shouldn’t run too hot. Maybe wattage ratings err on the conservative side in terms of one or two watts above.

2. The 7 watt bulb seems to work fine. There’s a bit of discolouration on the inside of the bulb after a couple of weeks of intermittent use. But I rarely run it at full brightness. I don’t mind this, but is this just a bulb issue? Or a heat issue either at the bulb level or switch level?

3. Would using the dimmer to run the bulb at lower output actually cause heat to build up either inside the unit or at the bulb to undesirable levels?

4. Is this proportionally like running a 60w bulb in a 40w socket? So we’re talking about scale here. Would a single watt above the rating be a significant step up in heat stress for the unit?

When I run the 7w bulb there isn’t much heat that I can feel from the base or near the glass cover.

I do have 6 watt incandescents, but the 7 watt ones I have are slightly bigger and seem to look better when lit. Or maybe it’s just my biases because bigger is assumed to look better.

Thanks again.

Christian