Chandelier bulbs keep blowing

[Stefone]

Hi everybody

Every time I went to my grandparents their chandelier had around 4 out of the 10 bulbs that had blown, this would happen after a couple of weeks of being replaced and it would alternate between the 10 sockets. It is on a 10amp type b breaker and there has been no issue with this since the fault started occurring and has not been tripping and I am sure they are not exceeding the maximum load wattage for that circuit. The bulbs they buy are from the local wholesalers and aren't particularly cheap, the chandelier is connected to a dimmer but the bulbs are dimmerble, the sockets are metal so should be able to take a higher wattage then say the plastic type. I recently replaced all the bulbs with the long life energy saving type which are dimmerble and this seems to have made the problem worse, there was some water damage to the ceiling some time ago but I cannot see how this would cause this particular fault, could somebody please please enlighten me, excuse the pun

 

[telectrix]

the water damage could have caused a problem with connections in the ceiling rose. a loose connection could be the cause. bad contacts on the lampholders, could be anything in that vein. i would suggest calling a sparks in. there may be an underlying problem with the installation.

 

[Stefone]

Thanks, will check the connections in the ceiling Rose, could be a loose termination in the neutral, I'm j.I.b and don't normally mess around with domestic and the ceiling is really high plus it's a 2 man job to take down and reinstall which was why I was avoiding that route, the fact that the bulbs that are blowing keep on alternating brought me to the conclusion that it's not the connection to the lamp holders as 1 bulb may work for 6 months but once it's replaced it will suddenly blow and then after being replaced may work for a few months? Will just have to rent a decent ladder check the connections in the Rose, complete a ze and failing that get another pair of hands and re-wire chandelier ;-(

 

[micknew]

The only reasons I have ever found for bulbs blowing frequently are:
1. Cheap bulbs.
2. High mains voltage.
3. The lamps are old and reached the end of their life.
Never found the problem to be loose connection but it could cause the problem.
If it was loose connection the customer usually notices the lamps flashing.

 

[VoltzElectrical]

there was an informative thread on the subject a few months back. Does anybody want to help in the search?

 

[mydigitalhome]

For removal advice for removing chandaliers can only encourage you to use Trotter Trading Company world wide reputation for chandalier work especially in country houses their training video can be found at all reputable video shops.

On a personal note involved with a lot of Nursing Homes with large quantities of chandaliers have changed them to 3w LED lamps and they have been fantastic. One had 36 lamps in and prior to changing to LED they were using low energy really made the chandalier look cheap and nasty lots of plastic balls. Lights uses 24/7 because of doing that one light fitting have now been involved with changing over 1200 lamps. Im happy and the client is very happy paid for inself in energy savings already.

 

[Deleted member 9648]

75% of the time it's poor lamps.....the other 25% of the time it's clients getting confused over which lamps have failed...and in fact the lamps are lasting a lot longer than they think.

 

[Specialist]

If it's an old Chandelier it could simply be due to poor / weak springs on the contact pins in the Lampholders. Over the years with heating / cooling they can deteriorate & it turns into a vicious circle, you get poor Pin to Bulb contact which creates localised heating at the Filament terminals & kills the bulb.