World’s Oldest Light Bulb Still in Use after 108 Years

[The Straight Story]

World’s Oldest Light Bulb Still in Use after 108 Years
Sunday, January 24, 2010


In this age of energy efficiency, it is comforting to know that the world’s longest burning light bulb has been around since just after the turn of the century—the 20th century that is. At the Livermore-Pleasanton fire station No. 6 in Northern California, a hand-blown light bulb containing carbon filament is still working since it was first turned on in 1901. At the time, William McKinley was president of the United States and there were only 45 states.

Manufactured by the Shelby Electric Company, the bulb was made from a design by inventor Adolphe A. Chaillet, who competed unsuccessfully against Thomas Edison for dominance in the fledgling electricity market in the late 1800s, even though Chaillet’s bulbs were proven to survive higher voltages. The longest the bulb has been turned off was one week, back in 1937 when the firehouse underwent renovation. In 1976, when the bulb reached its 75th birthday, local police and firemen gave it a full escort during its transfer to its current home at station No. 6, where it runs on a separate power source of 120 volts.



http://www.allgov.com/ViewNews/Worlds_Oldest_Light_Bulb_Still_in_Use_after_108_Years_100124

[ProdigalJunkMail]

1. and we burn at least one a week here in this house...

just damn...

sP

[sandnsea]

2. My favorite thing about CFLs

No more burnt out light bulbs. That, in itself, is worth a few extra dollars that I think you'll get back from they're long life, regardless of the savings in electricity.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

5. We are changing them out as they go...

the problem is we have some incandescent bulbs in chandeliers that cannot be replaced by CFL...and to my knowledge never will be able to...

this is a great story...will be sharing it with my girls in the morning...

sP

[pokerfan]

15. Have you considered LEDs?

30,000 hour life and uses less than 1 watt.

http://www.attictrunk.com/fe15b10cltol1.html

[Igel]

25. They're pointless.

Chandelier incadescent bulbs radiate light in most directions. LEDs radiate light up. However, they're not sufficient to provide all the indirect lighting in a room.

You use them when you want to see a light bulb lit for the purposes of background, "accent" lighting. Not when you want to be able to tell the butter from the salad.

[HillbillyBob]

29. I use LEDs in my chandelier

5 bulb use 3.5 watts each for a total of 17.5 watts giving the light of 40 w eat for a total of 200 w I have them pointed up to a white(well almost needs newe paint after 15yrs) it lights the room nicely, that said it is a kind of cool white. The newer types of leds are starting to come with the leds arranged to spread the light out a bit. Mine are older and tend to be directional which is why I have torn the fixture apart so that I can shoot the light at the ceiling and spread it around.
Sams club is the only place so far that I have seen that you can pick up
bulbs from 'Lights of America' brands. They are making progress on the diffusion
I also have their 3.5w=45 watt floods that work with the motion sensors on our outside lights, they are instant on,(even at 10 degrees F) no flicker and given that we live in the country, but have one street light at our neighbors house they cut the gloom very well even when its foggy. The actually light the driveway better than the old incandescents did for our older night blind eyes.
I have the regular inside bulbs in other fixtures like over the kitchen sink a, counter and table too. So far we have replaced about 20% of the bulbs in the house when the CFLs finally die, most of the cfls are at least 5 7 yrs old. I have yet to find ones that will work in the range hood, refrigerator and freezer due to the shape and direction the light would need to point.
edit to add
I have switched out the incand night lights that burn 7 watts C7 old style Christmas bulbs with the chandelier 1.5 w= 10 or 15 watts so I can see to find my way around at night without killin myself fallin over dogs.

[harris8]

31. Chandelier / candelabra base CFL bulbs are available

7W per bulb, I buy them at Lowes.

[kwassa]

12. I've had several CFLs burn out, and a bad one right out of the box.

[scubadude]

14. I've burned out plenty of CFL's.

On the second one in a year and a half in one fixture. My complaint is that for me they don't last nearly as long as they advertise.

Scuba

[sandnsea]

23. I've changed one

I tend to leave them on or off. I read somewhere you're not supposed to turn them on and off all the time. Maybe you have kids in and out??

[scubadude]

33. That must be it.

I treat them as regular bulbs. I'm going to try to leave them on longer. Even though this will use more energy than turning them off, it may save money.

Thanks,
Scuba

[backscatter712]

26. YMMV on CFLs.

Some of them are duds out of the box or burn out quickly, but some last for years & years. I guess it depends on the brand of bulb and the quality of the tube and electronics.

[Tesha]

37. Every time you "start" a fluorescent lamp (compact or not), ...

...you blast a tiny bit of the electron-emitting material off
the cathodes of the lamp. When the last bit is gone (through
start-up blasting or routine power-on use), the lamp won't
operate any more.

It's for this reason that you *DON'T* want to use fluorescent
lamps where they are turned on-and-off frequently and only
run for a moment or two. In that situation, the fluorescent lamp
won't save any appreciable electricity (because the "on time"
is so short) and all those frequent starts will kill the life time of
the rather-expensive fluorescent or compact fluorescent lamp.

NOTE: A specific variety of lamp called a "Cold-Cathode Fluorescent
Lamp" (CCFL) is allegedly immune to this effect. We've just bought a
few of those and will see. The particular ones we bought are susceptible
to flickering on any brief powerline sags (transients). That's not
necessarily an inherent characteristic of all CCFLs, though, just the
particular lamps we bought.

Tesha

[reformist]

28. Don't get me started on CFLs!

CFL HATE!!!!

[HopeHoops]

32. You can't use CFLs with dimmer switches.

They also aren't useful outdoors or in the garage in cold areas. And if you have a bulb-mount lamp shade you have to get the encased version and it is much more expensive.

Otherwise, if you can get past the weird spectrum, they are pretty cool, don't burn out very often, and save money in the long run.

[Tesha]

34. Funny -- I'd guess at least a third of the CFLs in our house are operating on dimmers...

...and doing just fine.

Of course, if you want them to dim, you need to buy
CFLs that are "dimmable". But they are becoming more
and more common.

It turns out, by the way, that you can operate a "non-
dimmable" CFL on a dimmer switch (or a dimming X-10
controller, etc.) but you really have to train yourself to
never try to dim the thing. That's why any operation of
non-dimmable lamps on dimming switches is discouraged.
But in our house, we initially did it all the time with our
X-10 "lamp" modules. Now, we've switched most of these
(all of these?) over to using actual dimmable CFLs and get
generally good results.

Tesha

[HopeHoops]

43. Yeah, I had one on an X-10 for a while - makes a hell of a noise when it isn't at 100%

I had heard about the "dimmable" ones, but I haven't bought any. Are they worth it?

[Tesha]

48. They're getting a lot better.

The early dimmable lamps wouldn't dim down very far
before going out entirely. The more-recent ones we've
bought will dim quite far down, especially after a minute
or two "warming up".

The input filter choke still makes noise on some of them
but we mostly have them where they're at least a few feet
from our ears. (It's the very large surge currents in that choke
and the other neighboring components that make it a bad idea
to try to dim non-dimmable CFLs; drive the surge current
high enough and components in the lamp burn out/burn up!)

Dimming-wise, those CCFLs that we just bought are the
most impressive yet; they'll dim *WAY* down, but as I mentioned,
they also "follow" every dip and sag in the line voltage and
that's inherent in the very-low-cost way they implemented
their "dimming" design. They also tend to "sing" (make that
noise when dimmed), and their location places them closer
to our ears than most of the rest of our CFLs. Overall, the
jury's still out on this most-recent set of lamps ;).

Tesha

[Tesha]

35. We have no problem with cold-weather operation of CFLs.

We use them outside in spotlights and lanterns and in
the garrage in the electric garage door opener (vibration!)
and in the garage ceiling fixtures. They always start, even
the ones that aren't rated for cold starting.

Tesha

[Xithras]

42. Grrr, don't mention dimming CFL's to me.

I bought a bunch of Philips dimmable floods for the recessed lights in my kitchen, replacing eight 75-watt floods (600 watt draw) with eight 18-watt CFL's (144 watt draw). I got the bulbs on sale, but they still cost me $16 a piece.

14 months later, I've already replaced half of them, and one of the others is buzzing. Cost savings? Long life? Not in my house. As they fail, they're being replaced with incandescents again. They're cheaper to run. When you factor in the energy used in their manufacture, I suspect that they're better for the environment too.

[bighart]

46. Big problem is the toxic chemicals in them.

Don't toss them in the trash when they do burn out and hope you never break one in our home.

[Tesha]

49. No problem! Take them back to your neighborhood home center for recycling.

By the way, tungsten is a heavy metal too, with many of
the same long-term environmental problems as mercury
(although admittedly it doesn't spontaneously vaporize).
But the quantities of mercury in modern fluorescent lamps
is very, very small.

Tesha

[slampoet]

3. The world's oldest light bulb was dissassembled by Edison to see why it burned out.

This is the the world's Longest running lightbulb.

It is also why they don't use tungsten anymore.

[Tesha]

39. I think you've got it backwards.

This Methusalah of a lamp uses a *CARBON* filament
whereas moat modern incandescent lamps use a tungsten
filament.

Carbon had the advantage of being easy to form into a lamp
filament. But its melting point is less than tungsten's so it doesn't
make light that's as white or as efficient as a tungsten filament.

Tungsten lamps operate much, much more efficiently and tungsten
fulments operating in a halogen gas environment are
better still. But the disadvantage you pay for this nice
bright white light and higher energy efficiency is that the
lamps themselves don't last as long.

If you want, you can operate any lamp on reduced voltage
and get decades of operation from that one lamp. But the
increased cost of your electricity (to get the intended amount
of light) will vastly swamp the savings in lightbulb replacement
costs.

Tesha

[virgogal]

4. Unbelievable !

[Raine]

6. I remember seeing Charles Kuralt do a story on this

probably 20 years ago, good to see it's still going. :-)

[calico1]

7. And Edison won over this guy?

:shrug:

[jtuck004]

30. Edison got a lot of credit...knew how important connections were,

and not just the electrical ones.

Nicoli Tesla worked for Edison, but quit accusing Edison of stealing his ideas ("Tesla" is an interesting lesson that hard work and being right may not lead to success <G>). After he left Edison's employ Tesla lit up the Chicago World's fair with Alternating Current, while Edison pursed Direct Current. Had Edison won that battle we would have had a generator in every neighborhood. Edison even publicly electrocuted a horse and an elephant to show how dangerous alternating current was.

Tesla sold his patents on alternating current, and today alternating current is in nearly every home and business. Died still owning large amounts of money.

And nearly everyone, it seems, has been taught about Edison.

[Xithras]

40. Edison was a businessman more than he was an inventor.

There were several light bulb designs created in the late 1800's and early 1900's that had lifespans in the decades. What Edison had was a business plan that ensured profitability...his bulbs were cheaper to make, and as a bonus had to be replaced every couple of years, ensuring a repeat customer base. The other guys had better bulbs, but Edison had a better business model, so he got the financial backing needed to dominate the industry.

[hunter]

8. I have bad news. The world ends when this thing burns out.

It's God's little joke on us.

[niceypoo]

9. I remember seeing a story about this on, 'On the road with Charles Kuralt,' in the 70s

Glad to see it is still alight.

[ddeclue]

10. Betcha those bulbs made in China won't last 108 years.

:rofl:

[slampoet]

11. Actually it is the lack of Tungsten and the fact this bulb has never been turned off.

The Chinese thing to all you.

[Doremus]

13. Didn't read the OP did ya. The bulb has been turned off, more than once.

[slampoet]

16. I read a story 10 years ago that contradicted that.

[proteus_lives]

17. Neat story!

[Terra Alta]

18. wow, that's great.

I wonder how much longer it can last, though.

[Indy Lurker]

19. The Bulb is extremely inefficient

It has a very heavy element, and burns very dim.

You to could have a bulb that lasts for 100 years, but it puts out 7 watts of light and runs at 100 watts.

[backscatter712]

27. That's why it's lasted that long.

The filament is so thick that it won't vaporize and burn out like a filament in a conventional bulb.

[RedCloud]

20. Smash it immediately! The corpocracy desires waste!

[razorman]

21. There is a bulbcam focused on it, that updates every ten seconds.

http://www.centennialbulb.org/cam.htm

[AdHocSolver]

22. Most bulbs don't burn out. The filament breaks.

The number of hours listed on the package that tells you how long the bulb is supposed to last is not the minimum number of hours, but the maximum number of hours.

You can gauge whether a bulb will really last that long by examining how the filament is constructed. This is easier to see with clear glass, unfrosted bulbs. The long life bulbs have four or five filament support wires so that the unsupported part of the wire is short. The problematic bulbs have a long filament with support wires only at each end, with none in the middle.

Compact fluorescent bulbs are more costly to produce, use more resources in their manufacture, and contain mercury. LED's are much more energy efficient, use far less materials, can be made as cheaply, and can last far longer. However, bulb manufacturers will continue to promote CFL's as they are currently more profitable to sell.

[Tesha]

44. CFLs and LEDs are presently very competitive in efficiency.

"T5" fluorescent lamps (a long, straight variety) are substantially
more-efficient than either CFLs or LEDs.

And the mercury hazards of all types of fluorescent lamps are
frequently exagerated.

LEDs still give off light that is far less attractive than "good"
fluorescents while costing a lot more money to purchase. In
another few years, they'll be competitive, but their time had
not yet come.

Tesha

[liberal N proud]

24. And what happened to the Shelby Electric Company?

Are they in business today?

They made the product too well. With no planned obsolescence, they went out of business because you only needed to buy them once.

:sarcasm:

[Tracer]

36. I have two light bulbs in my house that have never been replaced ...

... since the house was built in 1967.

And both of them get turned on every day.

[Ganja Ninja]

38. They don't make them like they use to. n/t

[Tesha]

45. Thank goodness! What does this lamp get? A half-lumen per watt?

"T5" fluorescent lamps get 105 lumens per watt!

Tesha

[proud2BlibKansan]

41. Planned obsolescense

If light bulbs didn't burn out GE and Sylvania would have gone broke a long time ago:)

[Xithras]

47. There's a piece to this story that articles rarely mention.

Back in the late 1800's and early 1900's, most fire stations kept a gas lantern burning 24/7 in the engine room to provide light for late night calls. These gas lanterns were extremely reliable, but were expensive to operate and occasionally caused fires.

When electrification efforts started in the late 1800's, firehouses initially resisted them because early lightbulbs were NOT reliable AT ALL. They failed fairly randomly, and a brand new light bulb was just as likely to last 5 days as 5 years. It didn't take long for a few entrepreneurs to step up and try to fill in the gap, offering "guaranteed duty" bulbs that were specifically crafted to potentially last forever. These bulbs were marketed to hospitals, fire stations, and other locations where failures weren't an option. They weren't very bright and used a lot of power, but they were guaranteed to NEVER fail.

This bulb has lasted 100+ years simply because it spent most of its life in a quiet, small town fire station that never bothered to replace it. There were tens of thousands of identical bulbs made at the same time that would have lasted just as long, but they were mostly removed and thrown in the garbage by the 1950's simply because the improved quality of general use bulbs, and the lower cost of electrification (allowing multiple bulbs to be used simultaneously) had made them pointless. The Livermore bulb never got chucked because it existed in a quiet corner of a quiet fire station in a small town that didn't have the budget to remodel its fire stations every decade or two. It got lucky.