Jun 17, 2011

It's not a human and its not expected to have a life expectancy of 110 years! I am talking about a light bulb which is in service since 110(as of 2011). It hangs in a fire station in California. The power it consumes is not more than 4 watts! How many of our present day bulbs last more than a year? As a matter of fact, the bulb is the longest burning bulb ever existed eventually made into Guinness books of records!



History
First installed at the fire department hose cart house on L Street in 1901. Shortly after it moved to the main firehouse on Second. In 1903 it was moved to the new Station 1 on First and McLeod, and survived the renovation of the Firehouse in 1937, when it was off for about a week. During it's first 75 years it was connected directly to the 110 Volt city power, (subject to the power outages) , and not to the back-up generator for fear of a power surge. In 1976 it was moved with a full police and fire truck escort, under the watch of Captain Kirby Slate, to its present site in 1976 at Fire Station 6, 4550 East Ave., Livermore, California. It was then hooked to a seperate power source at 120V according to Frank Maul, Retired City Electrician, with no interuptions since.

Statistics
The improved incandescent lamp, invented by Adolphe A. Chaillet, was made by the Shelby Electric Company. It is a handblown bulb with carbon filament. Wattage- Began at 60 watts, currently shines at 4 watts. Left burning continuously in firehouse as a nightlight over the fire trucks

 Interesting
The bulb is quiet popular with the internet world. As much as it has its own website and also a Facebook fan page with 750+ fans! To monitor the bulb and to show it online to us, a camera is installed there. The camera captures snaps every 10 seconds and the same is shown online