Light Bulb Question...100 watts vs. 60 watts

[JME]

I have put six 100 watt light bulbs in my room. Each cieling socket is rated for 60 watts, not 100. How much of a fire hazard is this? Also how long would it tale of being on?

My friend every month had a light bill for 100 dollars, then he changed all his lights to the energy efficient bulbs and decreased the bill to 70ish a month!

Thanks

 

[csshih]

so why not also follow your friend and change to energy efficient bulbs (CFLs) ?

 

[buickid]

I've been putting higher wattage bulbs in fixtures for a while now. Theres no real rule for doing this, just common sense. If its a cheap lamp with shady wiring, it might be a good idea to stick to the rated bulb. If its in close proximity to flammable objects, or if the lamp shade is close to the lamp and flammable, it might be a good idea to stick to the rated bulb. When you do put a higher rated lamp in, let it run for an hour or so, monitor it and check to see if you smell anything burning/melting etc. Chances are you'll be okay going from 60->100W, but don't sue me if your house burns down. Obviously don't try putting a 200W lamp in a 30W fixture...

 

[Light Sabre]

Six 100 watt bulbs in one room ouch. It's best to follow the recommendations on the light fixtures. They were not designed to take that much extra heat. Get six 100 watt equivalent CFL's instead.

 

[JME]

I plan on it! Lookin forward to doing that...which ones are brighter though?

 

[Ken_McE]

I have put six 100 watt light bulbs in my room. Each cieling socket is rated for 60 watts, not 100.

There is a problem in that you are running the fixture at almost twice its rated capacity. The wires up in the ceiling are going to run hot, they may dry out, and you could have an unhappy ending. Try CFLs. Look for ones that actually consume 60 watts, not ones that say "60 watt equivalent"

 

[Light Sabre]

I plan on it! Lookin forward to doing that...which ones are brighter though?

I put two 4100K 100 watt eqiv's in my bathroom and had to go down to 4100K 75 watt eqiv's because the 100's were do damn bright. Both were the GE Energy Smart Cool White's. To my eyes they are pure white. No yellow and no blue tint to them at all. You can get them at Target, and I think Walmart too.

 

[TorchBoy]

A CFL that uses 60 W will be the equivalent of a 300 W incandescent. You probably don't want six of those.

I've seen light shades that melted onto light bulbs because they were rated for 60 W but used with 100 W bulbs. (The fitting was OK for 100 W.) It's not a good idea exceeding the rating. Too much heat really is a fire risk.

 

[MarNav1]

I would consider putting 100w bulbs in a 60w socket to definately be a fire hazard
(conventional bulbs). They just aren't rated for the heat generated. CFL's should be fine though, none of ours even get hot, only warm.

 

[mpteach]

...The wires up in the ceiling are going to run hot, they may dry out....Try CFLs. Look for ones that actually consume 60 watts, not ones that say "60 watt equivalent"

Where can you buy 60watt CFL? What do you do if you think your electrical wires may be dry?

 

[TorchBoy]

One of the local hardware shops has some 60 W CFLs, but they're not exactly the sort of thing someone would normally use in a home situation. They're big. Use several 18-23 W instead.

 

[Patriot]

I recently removed the 4 x 40W incans and replaced them with 4 x 26W (actual) CFL's....wow! The room is much brighter, I actually like the color a bit more, and they're 14W each more efficient. Just for fun, I installed 4 x 42W (actual) CFLs in there but they were blinding. I'm using them in the garage now and they're exceptionally bright even in that much larger space. Overall, I've been pleased with CFL's as long as beurocrates aren't telling me that I must use them.

 

[broadgage]

As others post, it would be potentialy unwise to exceed the recomended bulb wattage in a lighting fixture.

The risk is not that of overloading the wireing supplying the fixture, but risk of fire from the extra heat produced by the higher wattage lamps.

The risk is relatively small, but better not taken.

If 60 watt lamps are not bright enough, then try CFLs of about 20/23/25 watts, these should roughly equall 100 watt incandescent lamps in light output.

 

[LEDninja]

What do you do if you think your electrical wires may be dry?

REPLACE them before your house burn down. The insulation is damaged and can not be fixed.

Where can you buy 60watt CFL?

Electrical supply houses such as Graybar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graybar_Electric_Company.
Over the internet - google is helpful:
http://www.e3living.com/catalog/102
40 Watt High-Output Spiral CFL (200 Watt replacement)
55 Watt Compact Fluorescent Spiral - 250 Watt Replacement
65 Watt Daylight 5000K Compact Fluorescent Spiral - 275 Watt Replacement
Note some of these use mogul bases instead of E23/E27 medium screw base. Check dimensions, make sure they fit.

If 60 watt lamps are not bright enough, then try CFLs of about 20/23/25 watts, these should roughly equall 100 watt incandescent lamps in light output.

In North America they are usually 23 or 27 watts.

 

[matrixshaman]

What do you do if you think your electrical wires may be dry?

Maybe I haven't had enough coffee yet but I don't understand this question nor some of the responses. You don't want your electrical wiring to be wet! What are you talking about? Romex which is typical for house wiring is usually rated to fairly high heat levels and is unlikely to be affected by a 100 watt light bulb but I'll agree you don't want to exceed bulb holder ratings. Most bulb holders used to be rated 600 watts but I suspect that was part of the reason some fires were caused and may have been the reason most are now rated 60 watts.

Unless you have a very old house I don't think there is a concern with wiring insulation cracking and becoming exposed from heat if that is what the question refers to.

 

[alpg88]

you'll be find wiring wise, i've seen too many fixtures that use overrated bulbs, rating is done by how much heat can a fixture dissapate, too big of a bulb(wattage) overheats the fixture, what can happen?? depends, some fixtures might melt some parts, some fixtures will just burn bulbs quicker.
rating is done by regular incandesent bulbs, so if you using cfl, dissregard wattage max, if you using halogens, vise versa. cuz they burn hotter than inc.

 

[ab1ht]

Silly question (or maybe I missed it in the previous posts)...

Why not switch to LED replacements? They sell these in most hardware stores now. A little pricey, yes, but they will last forever.

Not sure if the LEDs will have the color rendering you're looking for, but they are a heck of a lot safer to have around than CFLs. And I believe they are much more efficient than incans.

 

[JohnR66]

LED lamps can last from ~100 hours (cheap ones with poor quality 5mm LED) to thousands of hours for ones with quality power LEDs. All the ones I've seen in B&M stores have poor efficiencies of 20 to 40 lumens per watt.Cree sells fixtures that boast over 100 l/w fixture efficiency and CRI of over 90, but these are several hundred $$ a piece.

Spiral typw CFLs range in the 55-65 l/w range so are around 4 times more efficient than incandescent. Of course, color temperature and human vision come into play to complicate things, but as a rough calculation, you can take the wattage of the CFL and multiply times 4 to get the wattage of incandescent it is to replace. A 23 watt CFL comes out to 92, a bit short of 100 watt. Since a standard 100 watt incan. bulb is a little more efficient than a 60 watt (17.5 vs 15 l/w) you might find the 23 watt to fall short in brightness. 26-28watt CFL is a better choice.

If you really want to save, go with linear tube fluorescent. An electronic ballasted F32T8 can reach 90 lumens per watt which is a big jump over CFL. Of course it may look funky in a bedroom.

 

[AggroLED]

If you really want to save, go with linear tube fluorescent.

How coincidental that you bring these up! My neighbor just recently change all of his bedroom lighting to these tubes. Besides looking like a laundromat, it is pretty efficient and doesn't give the room that warm radiation-like feeling. Plus it's not as yellow as the regular bulbs he was abusing.

 

[blasterman]

My friend every month had a light bill for 100 dollars, then he changed all his lights to the energy efficient bulbs and decreased the bill to 70ish a month!

How's his growth rate?