Bulbs breaking in lampost

wvphysics

I recently moved into a house and having been having issues with the lampost outside. At first it didn't work because of a short, but was fixed by rerunning new electrical cable to the post fixture from the nearby gfci that is tapped to provide power. Now after a few months of working properly, the bulbs are physically breaking. A sizable section at the top of the bulbs is shattering. I am on the 5th bulb now and they last maybe a week. Is there a situation where a bad connection can cause bulbs to break like this? would imagine it would take a surge and at that it would cause more of the entire bulb rather than the a section of the top. The lamp fixture is rather loose on top of the post. t does not appear that the bulb can bang on aything, but I was wondering if maybe getting shaken by wind and rain while the glass is hot could the cause behind the breaking.

Any ideas or opinons?

Scuba_Dave

Where are you located ?
What type of bulb, wattage ?
Has it been raining, can water get in thru the top ?
Cold rain hitting a hot bulb will usually cause it to shatter

wvphysics

In northern west virginia, temps have been ranging over the last month from upper 30's to upper 70's at night. Yes water gets in, in fact a few times ive found water actually in what is left of the bulb. I have been thinking of trying to find something to use as a gasket for the lid and/or glass. The bulbs are the smaller A15 40 watt incandescents.
Would the suggested action be to try and tighten up the fixture and find a gasket to seal out water?

Scuba_Dave

Yup, seal out the water & that should stop it
Any water getting in could short this out & cause a shock hazard too

joed

I agree. Water dripping on hot bulb is shattering it.

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Yoyizit

I can't imagine what else it could be.
Lower wattage bulbs may be less sensitive to this type of thermal shock. The glass may not get as hot.

Red Squirrel

Yep sounds like water or snow. Same thing happened to my car headlight not to long ago. It's broken and I did not get it fixed yet, and we had a snow fall recently and it exploded.

I would suggest putting that circuit on GFCI as well, just to be extra safe, if it's not setup that way already.

kbsparky

Put a CFL bulb out there, with an outer "bulb" (swirly part enclosed).

Cold water hitting it won't cause it to shatter, due to the operating temperature of the bulb.

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wvphysics

It is on a GFCI, there is a gfci outlet out front that its attached to. If there had not been then there could have been serious issues when the cable was shorting out when I first moved in. I'm going to take apart the housing, retighten everything so it doesnt knock around, and seal up everything with a little bit of silicon on the inside.

Sparky8370

I got an idea....................................















But probably the water.

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