It takes five G9 40w bulbs, bought a pack of 10 last April and it has blown them all since then. The house electrics are all up to current code (had an extension done 4 years ago and needed work then) so I don’t think it is a supply issue.

Just bad luck? Indian Burial Ground?

Any ideas? I am sick of replacing them but at the moment, the £6 for a pack of 10 is working out cheaper than the £50+ to buy a new fitting.

It could be volt drop due to the extensions lights taken from existing lighting circuit.
Or in past I found lamps popping due to a loose connection somewhere and even the houses supply cable being very old and being too small for the modern demands we want from our electrics.
Sorry for being a bit long winded but sounds like you need a spark to come round and investigate.

If it helps any, they are on a dimmer switch (fitted around the same time as the extension) and they *do* seem to have started going more regularly since the work was done.

When one goes it never trips the RCD either which I find odd (other lights sometimes do).

Some dimmers aren’t up to dimming low voltage lights.
See the website below. (I don’t know how to link just cut and paste into your browser.)
http://www.universal-lighting.co.uk/buying-guides/choosing_the_correct_dimmer_switch

They aren’t low voltage, they are 240v, 40w

How long are the lights on per day? If the lights are somewhere where they are on for a long time each day and they are cheap bulbs then this may actually be correct. Take a look at the average number of hours on the package for the bulbs

I would say they are on for an hour most mornings, about 4 hours on an evening. Weekends, holidays they are sometimes on all day especially in the winter months as it is a quite dark room and my wife has no limbs with which to switch lights off. Apparently.

Normally dimmed to about 50% of full brightness.

ooops, never replied sorry. There is your problem. Standard cheap bulbs are normally good for around 1000hrs, longer life ones sometimes 2000. That’s only around 3hrs a day if you are using them every day or about 6 months or so the way you are using them 🙁

Ghosts. Sell your home or, make a movie. Tis your only options, sorry.

Low-energy new-fangled ones in our house didn’t like the dimmer switches. Changed them to ordinary on/off ones and they have been lasting fine since. Used to flicker too.

Behind a dimmer switch it shouldn’t matter, but what’s your incoming voltage at the cut out? If it’s up around 253 then a fair number of the cheaper bulbs don’t like that. Work a quick check but get someone who knows what they’re doing to check it as I don’t want you to be responsible for zapping yourself.

Are you making sure you don’t touch the bulb with your finger tips i.e use gloves or a bit of cloth other wise being halogen like car headlight bulbs they don’t last as long.

more info here

Not a Ikea light is it,I have one in the kitchen which take 3xGU10’s.

I have had cheap bulbs,decent ones(Osram) and they all blow,I have 2 GU10 Downlighters in the kitchen as well and they all come on via the same switch .
The bulbs in the downlighters are lasting at least 3/4 times as long as the ones in the ikea light fitting.

Will be binning it off when I get around to redoing the kitchen.

Ours are the same – G9’s on a (non functioning) dimmer.

We genereally lose one a fortnight.

craigxxl – Member
Are you making sure you don’t touch the bulb with your finger tips i.e use gloves or a bit of cloth other wise being halogen like car headlight bulbs they don’t last as long.
more info here

POSTED 3 HOURS AGO # REPORT-POST

Nope never touch them – very careful about that. And no, not Ikea. ’twas quite expensive fitting too. 🙁

Check the lifetime in hours on the pack. It sounds as though they are lasting exactly as long as they say. I went through the same thing in our office until I worked this out and then pulled out the dimmers and switched to long life low energy bulbs which are usually 10000 hrs instead of 1000 (not g9 though :(. )

johndoh – Member

Just bad luck? Indian Burial Ground?

Check the history of your location … probably someone from the “other side” try to evict you or try to tell you that your house could be burned soon …

Our G9s blow regularly, can’t figure it out either, I’m not using cheap bulbs, maybe it’s just the way they are?

Nothing spooky going on – as others have said it’s just the normal lifespan of the lamps.
You’ve had them on for 40 hours a week for nearly a year, so you’ve had coming up for 2000 hours out of them, which is pretty good going for a lamp of this type.

You’ve had them on for 40 hours a week for nearly a year, so you’ve had coming up for 2000 hours out of them, which is pretty good going for a lamp of this type.

Some iffy maths on this thread! They may be on 40 hours a week in winter, but not in summer, so call it 30 hours a week on average. 10 months, so call it 44 weeks. 10 bulbs. That’s 132 hours per bulb. I’d expect even the cheapest to last far longer than that!

It takes five G9 40w bulbs

Did sir miss out this step in his iffy maths?

Cheaper bulbs tend to only be around 1000hrs as well

Ah right, yes. Still not 1000 hours though, 500 at most, ie 1/4 of what people are saying ‘is just right’.

I bought some cheap bulbs, still waiting for them to flower and that was 2 years ago, mind I did touch them with my fingers could this be the reason ?

Ah right, yes. Still not 1000 hours though, 500 at most, ie 1/4 of what people are saying ‘is just right’.

By your numbers it’s 660 hours each on average.
A decent quality branded halogen in ideal conditions has a rated life of 2000 hours. A cheaper one might be half that, then factor in repeated switching on and off, and poorly designed light fittings which don’t dissipate heat very well and you can halve that again.
Halogen lamps are OK for occasional use, but crap if they’re on for long periods – they get hot, they’re inefficient and the lamps don’t last long.
Low energy fluorescents will last 10-20000 hours, and LEDs will go on forever.

I had a similar conversation with somebody a few weeks ago who’s moved into a house we rewired a couple of years ago. It turned out that she works from home and the lights are on a lot of the time and they’re just dying of natural causes.

No reason voltage drop would blow a standard incandescent.