Saturday, April 10, 2010

Cheap-ass Lightbulbs

I have mentioned this on several occasions, but, still, WHAT FREAKIN' BRAND OF CHEAP-ASS LIGHTBULBS DID THE PREVIOUS OWNERS OF THIS HOUSE USE?

I've been here for about a year, and while I haven't yet replaced every bulb in the house, I'm well on my way to that laudable goal.  And it seems that, with at least half of the bulbs in the house, changing the bulb does not simply require a ladder and a new bulb, but a ladder, a new bulb, a pair of needle-nose pliers, eye protection, and a broom to sweep up.

In other words, they break off at the base.

In my lifetime, prior to moving in, I've had to do this a grand total of once.  (And I tried a potato.  And it didn't work.)  Now, it's a regular occurrence.  (Today it happened with a canister light.  Extra fun.  At least it was the one over the sink, so the mess was largely contained.)

The old bulbs aren't labelled, so I can't figure out what brand to blame, but they're a lighter weight than your standard GE Soft Whites, and they're clearly of a subpar quality.  

Let me put this in prospective -- I'm replacing them with CFLs that I bought in bulk at Costco, and they're of a way higher quality. 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That potato trick is a bunch of hooey. We tred that once and it didn't work at all. All we had was a potato with some lightbulb shards in it and a now wet lightbulb that still needed to be removed!!

Wil said...

They bought a case of cheap Chinese bulbs usually sold to tract house builders. This was done so they could remove all of their CFL's and higher quality 'soft whites'. It is an old trick that I used to see as a landlord.