A stupid moment, changing my first UK lightbulb!

Ha, had a stupid moment- living room lightbulb blew, it knocked out the downstairs lighting fuse.  Had to figure out first where my fuse box was. Found that, figured that out. Went to change the lightbulb and went, huh?  Oh, weird edison cap thingy.  Hmmm...  I couldn't quite see easily perched on my stool and I was like, how in the world does this thing work?  Had to get on a chair so I was level height before I realized that it was spring loaded. So easy peasy, but a dunce moment! Like first figuring out how the oven worked, the shower, the heating, the dishwasher, the freeview box, DVD player, weird electric lawnmower, etc- all little things that are slightly different than in the states and you feel stupid that you don't know how it works a first glance!

Hehehehe...

 

ben here four years and still  haven't changed one :\\\'(   hate that it blows out everything..what is that about??!!

Don't feel stupid, I took the dead bulb to the store to match it up with a new one and still ended up standing there for about 30 minutes trying to figure it all out!

ben here four years and still  haven't changed one :\\\'(   hate that it blows out everything..what is that about??!!

Something to do with your electrics - mine doesn't do anything but blow the bulb

Mine definitely knocked out the fuse! 

Funny how little things can make you feel like such a dunce!

Something to do with your electrics - mine doesn't do anything but blow the bulb

Yeah, same with mine - it's only the light itself that is affected when a bulb blows in our house. It must depend on the wiring/electrics in different houses as to whether the fuse goes or not.

It must depend on the wiring/electrics in different houses as to whether the fuse goes or not.

Depends how the bulb fails. Incandescent bulbs (filament types) lose metal from the filament by evaporation all the time they are lit. Since no light bulb is perfect, the filament does not evaporate evenly. Some spots will suffer greater evaporation and become thinner than the rest of the filament.Eventually the filament WILL fail when a thin part of it melts or breaks. What happens then depends n a number of factors. The broken filament can just dangle uselessly - the circuit is broken, no more light, the fuse is intact (or in a modern house, the breaker didn't trip). However, if there is an arc in the bulb, or if a filament or a supporting wire got misplaced in such a way that a short circuit happens, then POW! Some bulbs have a fuse wire built in to one of the wire legs holding up the filament, to (hopefully) avoid the fuse or breaker having to operate.

 

first time I tried to change a bulb I was lucky not to cut myself.  I was trying to twist it off- you know unscrew it.  It was a bayonet type thingie and I don't have clue how I managed to get it out but I did and I didn't break the bulb holding it sooo tight. 

ben here four years and still  haven't changed one :\\\'(  

Been here 3 years and havent changed one either. Made a very commical attempt too once, but in the end DH had to take over.

Hate the bayonet ones. Hate. Them.

I hate the screw-in ones, myself. At least with the bayonet type fitting the metal cap is isolated from the electric supply; with the Edison screw it is connected to one side of the electric mains. A bad wiring job or a fault could give you a bad shock or worse.

I did the same thing!

Has anyone else accidently bought the wrong kind of lightbulb? I accidently picked up the screw in type when I really needed the other type! So now I have a box of useless screw in lightblubs 

Thanks for posting this! I remember reading in Paul's ginormous electronics thread that lightbulbs are different there, but it hadn't occured to me that something as simple as changing a lightbulb (how many times have you done that in your life and take it for granted??) would be so different! I like reading about these kinds of discoveries.

I used to say "How many Americans does it take to change a bayonet lightbulb?"

The answer in my case was "ZERO" because I wouldn't change it, I would just wait until my husband came home.  I hated the way the bulb had to be gripped so tightly.

Now I do actually change them.  Our fixtures are so old and cheap though.  One time I was changing the bulb in our bedroom and the whole plastic fixture ring thingy just crumbled in my hand.