How to change a lightbulb

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Is your house inexplicably dark at night? Do you find yourself stumbling from room to room and stubbing toes? Chances are you have a burned out lightbulb (or you haven't paid your utilities). This article will help you with the first one, but you should have thought twice about doubling down in Vegas last week if your problem is the latter.

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Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

A fresh lightbulb (check your fixtures' specifications for proper wattage)
A step ladder (unless the bad bulb is easily in reach)
A keen eye and a steady hand

Step1

Troubleshooting is the first step in any maintainence project. Turn the light switch to the "on" position. If the bulb fails to illuminate, chances are you have a bad bulb. Make sure to move the switch back to the "off" position prior to the replacement of the bulb. Failure to do so could result in temporary loss of vision.

Step2

Assess your plan of action for accessing the bad bulb. If the bulb resides in an overhead fixture, a step ladder may be required (getting a boost is not a safe alternative to a step ladder).

Step3

Once you have successfully removed the bad bulb, give it a shake. If you hear a little rattly noise, the bulb is indeed bad (yes, this is the "official, how to tell if a bulb is bad" technique).

Step4

Replace the bad bulb with a fresh one by slowly twisting the threaded end clockwise (righty tighty, lefty loosey) until snug.

Step5

After the new bulb is in place and your feet are back safe on the ground, give the corresponding switch a flip, sit back and revel in your handiness.

Tips & Warnings

Don't touch light bulbs which have recently been turned on, they're hot and could cause injury.
Don't put your finger, or metal objects into the light socket. This has been known to cause loss of bladder control and short term memory loss.

Comments

ncblu66 said

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on 7/27/2007 hold the bulb in one hand and have a friend rotate the whole world

MrKnowItAll said

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on 1/25/2007 ..you forget to mention "energy sparing" lamps, the "shake them till they rattle" technique doesnt work too well with those. What to do here, check and see if the light switch is off or on (its difficult to tell with these, even when they are still supposedly "functioning"), carefully unscrew them, then throw them away ("recycling").

Repeat the above procedure for every device in your house that youve unfortunately been stupid enough to buy one of these DevilsTools for - replace with 30c proper incadescents ("bulbs") from your local WalMart or wherever -Hey Presto! You no longer look like youve been awake the whole night after drinking 15 beers.

Admittedly, you will then *need* a handy pair of stepladders on a regular basis, and have to follow the entirely sensible advise above more often, and your electricity bill will return to its previous astronomical levels, but, Hey! you will feel better for following this advice, not to mention being definitely healthier in appearance. Youll all thank me one day for telling you this as well, trust me..