Help needed

[bluemoon32]

I bought a house about a year ago & had a lot of electrical work done about 8 months ago,since the work has finished i've had major problems with lightbulbs blowing all over the house on a regular basis & this is obviously getting expensive. I can't get the original electricians to come out & check the work as we had a bust up concerning the escalating costs of the job at the time. Is it just unlucky or could there be a problem with the electrics which is causing so many lightbulbs to blow?
Any help would be much appreciated

 

[2scoops0406]

Was the bust up before or after he finished the job?

 

[bluemoon32]

Was the bust up before or after he finished the job?

It was after so i wouldn't have thought he'd mucked up the job on purpose

 

[fubar]

Is it just unlucky or could there be a problem with the electrics which is causing so many lightbulbs to blow?

It is just unlucky. Most lightbulbs sold here are now made for the entire EU market and in some places in the UK the voltage can be on the high side (but still within acceptable limits), thus causing the lifetime of the lamp to be significantly reduced.

One of my customers has the same problem and we have tried various makes of lamp with no noticable difference. If you are competent with the use of a voltmeter/multimeter, you could try measuring the voltage between L and N at various times of the day, in particular during Coronation Street and at the beginning of the break and posting the results here.

If the voltage is outside the acceptable limits for you and your neighbours, you may be able to get your distribution network operator (DNO) to 'tweak' the local substation.

Alternatively, there is a piece of equipment that you can fit near your consumer unit to fix this problem, but you would likely have to pay for this yourself and it is not cheap. Unless you have a lot of expensive, vulnerable electrical equipment, it is unlikely to be cost-effective.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Make sure you buy lamps rated at 240V, not 230.

 

[shaggy]

Would I be right in thinking that low energy bulbs would not be sensitive to voltage like filament bulbs? I don't think they work with dimmer switches though do they?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

AFAIK, the direct replacement lamps with built-in control gear are undimmable, but you can, of course, get a variety of low-energy luminaires which take different lamp formats, and have control gear which can be dimmed. But they aint cheap.

 

[plugwash]

the direct replacement lamps are dimmable by using a variable voltage dc supply

however construcing such a suplly would be nontrivial and mains voltage DC is not nice stuff (dc arcs *MUCH* more readilly than ac)