How to find shorter light bulbs
October 16, 2021 6:45 PM   Subscribe

I have a fixture that takes standard A19/E26 light bulbs, but the ones I can find are all a little too long. How can I find shorter bulbs?

The bulbs originally in it (when we bought the house) were about 4 1/8" long (from the base of the socket to the top of the bulb), standard A19/E26, 1500 lumen LEDs. The replacements I have around the house are more like 4 5/8" long, and they stick out of the fixture more than I'd like. I've looked all over and tried googling random letters printed on the old bulbs in hopes of finding the same or similar models, with no luck--from what I can tell everything out there is longer than 4 1/8". Any ideas?
posted by bfields to Home & Garden (4 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Compact fluorescents are sometimes a little shorter, esp. if they don't have the round shell on the outside.

If you must have LED, I'd try searching on superbrightLEDs.com such as this CL-x12
posted by kschang at 7:30 PM on October 16, 2021


Have you tried a globe shaped bulb? They are all that fit in my (1950s) light fixtures.
posted by assenav at 8:30 PM on October 16, 2021


I believe you're looking for an A15 bulb. Looks sort of like a shrunken A19 yet has the same standard E26 base. According to Wikipedia, it's 3.39 inches tall.

I needed some short bulbs that wouldn't stick out of some small wall fixtures, and these worked fine. Here's what I ordered, I think.
posted by bassomatic at 7:55 AM on October 17, 2021


Response by poster: I think the original bulbs must just not be made any more.

"If you must have LED, I'd try searching on superbrightLEDs.com such as this CL-x12"

Based on the dimensional drawing they link to, that's well over over 6" long/tall. Thanks for pointing out that site--I like that they have those detailed dimensions for every bulb.

I'll probably experiment with A15's and globes, thanks.

(Though as far as I can tell, the original bulbs are actually A19's--my understanding is that what defines an A19 is the width, and they're the full A19 width, they're just shorter.)

The problem is that A15s only seem to come in lower powers. But less bright bulbs might be OK for my purposes.
posted by bfields at 6:52 AM on October 21, 2021


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