Bulbs needing frequent replacement

Aj_newbie

Hello!
Hope everyone is doing well.

I am having issues with bulbs all across the property except one bedroom. In the past 6 months, I had to replace others between 2-3 times.

It's an electric only flat, converted from commercial building in 2011. 

I had got the property inspected with an electrical engineer back in 2020, and it all was good then.
There has been no electrical changes, wirings or any extension in the past 4 years. The problem started within the last 5-6 months.

Not sure what's the issue. Any pointers will be helpful.
Thanks in advance

Bendy_House

What type of bulbs? LED or filament.
Some, particularly cheap, LED lamps are prone to failure. Are all the failing ones the same type? From the same batch?
Both types of bulb can be assisted by using soft-start switches - most are dimming types.

fenwick458

where are you buying your bulbs and what type are they?
try buying a decent brand, they come with a warranty and you can get free replacements

Bendy_House

Aj, it's extremely unlikely to be an outside influence such as a raised mains voltage, or faulty wiring. You can certainly check the mains voltage quite easily using a meter, but I'd expect other devices to be suffering as well as bulbs in such an event.

And faulty wiring doesn't cause this either, in any way I can realistically think of. Yes, if you had a poor connection that caused the light to flicker on and off a lot, then that would/could reduce their longevity, but such a flicker would be very obvious.

I suspect you just have carp bulbs :-(

Norman_Castle

Whenever I've had bulbs fail early I've found a loose connection, from memory often in the switch. If its not a batch of poor quality bulbs I'd be suspecting a poor connection in the lighting circuit.

FreeBear

Bendy_House said:

Aj, it's extremely unlikely to be an outside influence such as a raised mains voltage, or faulty wiring. You can certainly check the mains voltage quite easily using a meter, but I'd expect other devices to be suffering as well as bulbs in such an event.

And faulty wiring doesn't cause this either, in any way I can realistically think of. Yes, if you had a poor connection that caused the light to flicker on and off a lot, then that would/could reduce their longevity, but such a flicker would be very obvious.

I suspect you just have carp bulbs :-(

It could be a poor quality mains supply. If there are spikes and brown-outs, these could cause electronic devices to fail (i.e. LED bulbs). A multimeter will be of little use to check for transients - For that, you need a proper data logger connected to the mains for an extended period of time. An expensive piece of kit, and something your electricity supplier or DNO will charge for if no fault is found.

Faulty wiring can cause intermittent brown-outs - The most likely location would be the terminals inside the light switches. Wouldn't hurt to have these checked, although you are likely to see lights flickering when turned on.

That said, more likely a substandard batch of bulbs - A few years back, the market was flooded with a bunch of very low quality capacitors that found their way into a lot of computers. This cost suppliers quite a bit of money over a spike in warranty repairs. It is conceivable that another batch of dodgy capacitors has hit the market.  

Bendy_House

FreeBear said:

Bendy_House said:

Aj, it's extremely unlikely to be an outside influence such as a raised mains voltage, or faulty wiring. You can certainly check the mains voltage quite easily using a meter, but I'd expect other devices to be suffering as well as bulbs in such an event.

And faulty wiring doesn't cause this either, in any way I can realistically think of. Yes, if you had a poor connection that caused the light to flicker on and off a lot, then that would/could reduce their longevity, but such a flicker would be very obvious.

I suspect you just have carp bulbs :-(

It could be a poor quality mains supply. If there are spikes and brown-outs, these could cause electronic devices to fail (i.e. LED bulbs). A multimeter will be of little use to check for transients - For that, you need a proper data logger connected to the mains for an extended period of time. An expensive piece of kit, and something your electricity supplier or DNO will charge for if no fault is found.

Faulty wiring can cause intermittent brown-outs - The most likely location would be the terminals inside the light switches. Wouldn't hurt to have these checked, although you are likely to see lights flickering when turned on.

That said, more likely a substandard batch of bulbs - A few years back, the market was flooded with a bunch of very low quality capacitors that found their way into a lot of computers. This cost suppliers quite a bit of money over a spike in warranty repairs. It is conceivable that another batch of dodgy capacitors has hit the market.  

Yup, good point - and I went through a spate of nuisance RCD trips last year which my sparky could only put down to such spikes in the local supply - he had another customer with similar issues.

As for a poor wiring connection, yes that too can cause this, but I wouldn't expect it on more than one circuit, which I understand the OP is. Also, a poor connection would usually manifest itself in other ways - flickering, etc. If the OP has that, then yes... :-)

Aj_newbie

Thank you everyone for your inputs. To me it looks like the cause is substandard bulbs. Let me address that to begin with.