New light fixture "buzzing"

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Hi all,

My husband just put up a new light fixture in the dining room. It's nice, but it buzzes. I'm wondering if it's overloading something. It has six 100w light bulbs, and one 75 watter. That's what it called for. What could the buzzing be? Is it probably okay?

Thanks!

Windy

-- wendy godfrey (windyz@aol.com), February 17, 2002

Answers

675 watts of light for just a dining room is a little overkill,don't you think. If it was fluorescent lights I would have said to check your ballast,but I do believe you are talking incandescent. I would try taking a copule lights bulbs out and see if that stops the buzzing. If it does then you probably need to lower your wattage to maybe 6 - 60 watts and a 75.

-- TomK(mich) (tjk@cac.net), February 17, 2002.

My husband is an licensed electrician. He said an incadescent light is NOT supposed to buzz.

He says your husband needs to see if the wire size coming to the new fixture is big enough to handle all the amps that big of a light fixture is going to pull from it. It needs to be a No. 12 wire...no smaller.

-- Suzy in Bama (slgt@yahoo.com), February 17, 2002.


Noises are made by moving things. There aren't supposed to be moving things (other than electrons and photons) in a light fixture with incandescent globes. However, you're pulling almost as much power there as a one-bar electric radiator. Check out what the fitting is actually rated for - my impression is that these sort of things would normally use 25 or 40 watt globes. I'd say there's a good chance something is shorting out in the fixture, and the buzz is from whatever arcing over. THIS WOULD BE DANGEROUS. Find the answer. If the fixture has been arcing and short-circuiting, overloaded or not, then you also need to think hard about whether it can be safely used in the future, even if you repair where it happened.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), February 17, 2002.

wow Wendy, that's more wattage than all the lights inside my house combined. Something is either arcing somewhere in the fixture or the load is meeting so much resistance that it's causing the wires to resonate. If your house has older wiring then that's way too much wattage for one fixture. Even if the breaker or fuse isn't tripping, the wiring could be getting hot and lead to a fire.

-- Dave (something@somewhere.com), February 17, 2002.

Thanks everyone! We're putting in lower watt bulbs as I type. Hope that'll help.

Thanks again!

Windy

-- wendy godfrey (windyz@aol.com), February 20, 2002.



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