Spinty

I need a little help. A light bulb literally exploded last night, showering glass everwhere and none of the glass of the bulb remains in the ceiling. I want to replace the bulb but cannot remove the plug due to it being very tricky to get my hand on anything. The socket is one built into the ceiling not leaving much room for my hand or a pair of pliars - does anybody have any ideas?

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captainff

As a first precaution I would NEVER attempt anything without knowing for definite that the power was off to the fitting.

You can buy long reach pliers like this that will help you to get into it. I'm going to assume that it's a standard glass bulb with a metal cap? If so, making sure the power is off, use the long nose pliers on the inside of the cap and exert outwards pressure to get some leverage to remove the rest of the broken bulb.

Did I mention you must make sure the power is off first?

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sremick

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RoboFrance

I've used half a potato before.

I agree. Find and turn off the connected fuse.

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alexbel

my teacher warned me about this we had to put a bunch of wires together(3 is so many) and we finished so we borrowed other peoples batterys and made the lightbulb bright and my teacher said if you add to many boom it explodes

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No Juice For You!

Spinty

Well, you'll be glad to know the incident is now closed - after cutting my finger, having pieces of glass filament holder raining down on me and potentially electrocuting myself, I managed to wrestle the plug out of the ceiling.

Unfortunately the switches for the power to the building are completely burried in general junk and didn't have time to uncover it - also, I might have made a mess and didn't really want people finding out this light bulb exploded - I'm sure I would have been blamed for it. If it had happened 10 minutes later than it did, I would probably be slightly more lacerated right now. But sticking my finger into the light bulb socket with the power on wasn't a mistake in the end.

Oh, and as for the potato trick, I read up on that on the internet but onfortunately, there wasn't enough left of the bulb for that to work.

All's well that ends well.

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Gaz

all switches are wired so that when it is in at the bottom it is on. that is if you had a good electrician.

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ROB64

^Not all switches. There are at least 5 circuits in my house that have 2 switches controlling one light (or set of lights). It's a very common thing to have.

Turn the light off and use a potato cut in half. Jam it into the base of the bulb to get it loose, then unscrew it. If you don't know what poistion of the light switch is off, just flip the circuit breaker off.

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Gaz

well they should be set up like that, it is done that way incase of an incident like this.

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mr_resi

Hmmm have you tried needle nose? If not you might want to use an apple or potatoe, just stick that into the remaing part of the light bulb and twist away!

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sremick

Why does everyone keep offering him advice? Read the thread before responding. He said it's closed, he got it out.

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there != their != they're, your != you're, than != then, to != too != two, affect != effect, by != buy != bye, loose != lose, passed != past, plain != plane, wonder != wander, where != were != wear, break != brake, four != for != fore, allowed != aloud, hole != whole, cite != site != sight, hear != here
"alot", "rediculous", "u", "y" and "ur" are not words. Nor are any number/letter combos.
Commas, periods and apostrophes are your friends.

Spinty

Thanks.

This thread can locked and used for future reference for other people needing to change exploded light bulbs.

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