DIY Doctor UK DIY Forums

Can anyone shed some light (bad pun) on why this is?....

Lounge has three lights. Kitchen has three lights.

One of the lights in the lounge blew so my mother asked me to source the lamp bulb. The bulb that blew was a Philips 28W 240V Halogen Classic 2800K 370lm. Sourced some on Amazon and thought that would be job done.

When I next see her, one of the other bulbs has also blown in the lounge and the Philips bulbs have arrived, they fit but don't work.
Checked the one working bulb in the lounge and found it was different to the others. It is a Philips WarmGlow 6W 2200 - 2700K 470lm. This bulb works in all three of the lounge fittings.

Decided to see if the new bulbs she'd bought work in the kitchen with the same fittings...and they do so there is nothing wrong with new bulbs.

This bulb type used to work in the lounge but now don't. Why would this be the case? Is it simply linked to a new fault in the electrics? In that case, why does the Philips WarmGlow work in all three fittings? To me its a mystery but I'd be very interested to know why. As things stand, we will hunt down some more WarmGlow bulbs.

From your description, I am assuming you are replacing a halogen bulb with a LED bulb and as you don't mention the voltage, so that could be one problem.

Have you checked that the bulb fitting is identical to the original?

Hi Bob! All the fittings in the lounge and the kitchen are identical and take up to 60watts. The new bulbs purchased are Philips 28W 240V Halogen Classic 2800K 370lm. The old bulbs are also the Philips 28W 240V Halogen Classic 2800K 370lm. One of the bulbs in the lounge died, ordered some more. Next visit to mums and another lightbulb has died. No problem I’ll just put the new light bulbs in, same model...don’t work but work in same fittings in the kitchen. The one remaining lightbulb that is working on the lounge was strangely a different type of bulb, an LED as you say, Philips WarmGlow. It would appear that my mums kitchen can take either halogen or LED bulbs but the lounge where it used to take Philips 28W 240V Halogen Classic 2800K 370lm, no longer does. As I said, we can go and buy the LED WarmGlow bulbs and they will work but she has used Philips 28W 240V Halogen Classic 2800K 370lm in the lounge without a problem. Wierd!

If the light has ES fitting bulbs, maybe the bulb is fouling the shade and preventing electrical connection?

To be much help, we need the fitment detail of the bulb. G9, GU10, ES, BC for example, oh, and the voltage of the LED bulb.

As said likely the contacts either stuck or deformed and not making contact, it was regular fault with old tungsten bulbs the solder contacts would drops little bits of solder which would jam the spring contacts down, as said what type of bulb.