electrical question

[Brett Hartwig]

I am in the process of installing some exterior lights on my garage. When the house was built, the electrician ran 2 strands of Romex to each of 3 stud spaces for future lights if I wanted. I hooked up 1 Romex to the lights, 60W bulb works. Tried 100W bulb, does not work. Does that mean I have to hook both strands to the light fixture if I want to use a 100W bulb? Either that or I have to stay with the way it is hooked up now and use a 60W bulb?

 

[Richard L]

Freeport,

110 Volt AC house current only requires a hot lead and a neutral. A third wire ground is often used as a safety ground. What ever you have wired for a 60 watt light bulb should have not problems handling a 100 watt bulb, or even 10 of them. It sounds like the 100 watt bulb is bad, or the light bulb socket is limited to a 60 watt bulb...even then, the 100 watt bulb should still light, but the socket is not designed to handle that much heat and current for extended periods of time. Some plastic bulb sockets are only rated for 60 watts. Usually the ceramic sockets can handle 100 watt bulbs and even much larger bulbs.



You might check the light socket and upgrade to a socket that can handle more than 60 watts. or you could be energy efficient and switch over to a compact florescent bulb which only consumes about 13-15 watts of power but provides about the same illumination as a 100 watt bulb. The compact florescent bulb also last about 5-7 years.



...Rich

 

[Mark K 2]

Compact fluorescents suck in cold climates. In the winter cold, if they come on at all, they flicker or never come to full brightness, even after several hours. This flickering ruins them. I tried one in my garage and after four months, it was toast. I wonder if the idiots who are slowly banning light bulbs ever thought of that beforehand.

 

[Richard L]

Mark,

I agree that cheap compact florecents do not work well in cold weather, but the better quality ones (and more expensive) work fine.



I have compact florecents in several outdoor locations and they worked fine even in cold weather when temperatures dropped down to nearly zero this winter...I never had any flickering. They do take a little longer to come up to full brightness in cold weather, but they still come on immediately at about 75% of their full brightness. Some of the cheaper bulbs are slow to come on even when used indoors.



...Rich

 

[Brett Hartwig]

the only thing I never liked about florescents was the light always seemed so whitish blue, it was like a tanning spa in the room. are all of them like that?

 

[Richard L]

freeport,

Some have a cold light and some have a more natural, warmer color. If you check the package and info about the bulb, they will often indicate that they are designed to give off a warmer light than the old blue or even green tints of the old florecents. The more expensive ones often have a color correction.



In lamps with colored shades, I found that it does not seem to matter as much since the light will pickup color from the shade or wall colors and look very natural. Just a bare florecent bulb in a white room will probably appear too cold and have that blue/green tint.



You can also use conventional incandesant bulbs as accent lights to help warm up the cold florecent lights. I found that even the newer zenon and halogen bulbs can give off too much white light. Buy adding a dimmer control to the light switch I can dim the lights and reduce the harsh white color to a warm glow and that even warms up the florecent light even more.



...Rich