Any electricians in the house?

So today was the final straw....

We are going through light bulbs like they are going out of fashion like literally every month we are replacing bulbs. Even in the kitchen we have some damn expensive £15 each long life 12 volt spot things which keep blowing. Invariably when a bulb blows it usually trips out the main light circuits and a trip to the meter cupboard is called for.

Today I replaced 2 standard 40w Candle style bulbs and after 1 hour one of them started flickering and blew!

What is going on, its costing a fortune!! :explode :help:

http://www.diydoctor.org.uk/projects/bulbs.htm

It sounds like you have a fault on the consumer unit or wiring that is being overloaded somewhere.

It depends on the load, but flickering as you describe definitely sounds like a serious fault. Circuits that are close to capacity or wiring that is close to overload can cause "phasing" as you describe.

I'm not 100% about this, but I remember reading somewhere about ripples on the 50Hz supply causing a sort of inducted "phasing" effect. Bulbs are relatively weak and can act as a sort of fuse.

I've seen this sort of thing take washing machines and TVs out with a bang, so it's serious stuff. I hope your prized electricals have surge protection on them.

I'd get an electrician onto it pronto, Gareth.

I will echo Merlin's comments here, something on your light-ring circuit is drawing to much power.

I would inspect the obvious, most houses have two light ring circuits (upstairs and down stairs), should that you do, do both rings suffer the same problem, if so this leads back to the junction box.

I used to live in a house (bedsit) that had a shared mains (appliance) and light ring... it was so poorly wired that every time I played a chord on my Yamaha synth my Monitor on the PC would flicker... in the end the poor electrics actually killed my Orion 21" VGA monitor and two PC PSU's

If you have a friend or relative in the electricians trade then it would be wise to consult them my friend.
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I can also suspect of a bad joint on the main junction: when a bad contact occurs on the main circuit breaker the wires can burn and the copper develops a even worst contact as time passes.

Call an electrician and start checking by the circuit breaker/meter: the screws must look clean, and the wires must be "mint".

By mint I'm don't telling GREEN! Green copper is oxidization!

If you see something that's not normal, replace the offended part.

Sometimes the problem lies a bit before: on the electricity pole clamps.
Since most clamps are made of aluminium (as the mains entrance wires), they can suffer from oxidization, too. In fact aluminium oxidises much more easier than copper, with an aggravation: aluminium oxide is transparent and an electricity insulator!

If the house inspection doesn't result in something wrong, ask the electricity company to replace the clamps as they may be defective.

Heck! Those clamps must be replaced every five-to-ten years, if not earlier.

Thanks all for your comments. We do have two separate circuits (upstairs & downstairs) but both are affected. Also because we live out in the sticks we have (excuse my ignorance) a transformer thingy? (picture if required) attached to two poles outside, last year this thing blew and we have had a brand new one replaced. I thought this may have been the issue but apparently not. Strangely, nobody else is getting these issues so I do believe it is something local to our house.

Hi. Do any of you normal table lamps that plug into the standard ring main also need regular bulb replacement?

I have heard about PC power supplies (er, switch mode?) if they start going wrong can cause problems on the mains.

Good point we have 3 and they never blow!

Hmm, best get a sparky in mate. If it's a loose terminal (or terminals) then it's a potential fire risk. Points of interest are ceiling rose's, switches or the consumer unit.

Yea, as far as I can see, if the bulb blows, then it's acting like a fuse as already been said in the thread. So it points to a poor connection, thus drawing more current...and getting hot. Do the bulbs blow violently or just ping?

Both really, sometimes they ping, other times its enough to trip the circuits. It happens enough to say this is not a one off