http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/lighting/

in the lighting forum you'll find people who can explain this well.

Your dimmers are 20th century technology. I think newer more expensive dimmers don't hum.

Is it the dimmer buzzing or the light? If the light is buzzing it is indeed the quality of the bulb - specifically the filaments. We had this problem with a large dining room pendant and switch bulbs - no more buzzing.

We have just the standard dimmers you are talking about.

We had a couple bad dimmers in our house but those caused "flickering" not buzzing.

hi--thanks for your replies. I was just over on lighting but as I suspected things got way too technical way too fast :) (and also things disintegrate into chest-bumping between different posters. I hate that.) I'm hoping to get answers here from regular folks...

It is the lights themselves that are buzzing. These are regular incandescents. The fixtures are from Rejuvenation and from Robert Abbey. So here are my questions:

--what dimmers have people had a good experience with? I keep seeing Lutron mentioned and that is the brand of the one we have that is quiet. Any others, and/or particular models?

--What brand of lightbulbs have people had success with? If possible I'd like to have a "regular" brand, i.e. one I can buy at the grocery store or something.

--I have noticed that the full-spectrum bulbs seem to burn out more quickly and maybe make more noise. Has anyone else noticed this?

Thank you so much!!

Thanks for asking this question. I have only one that buzzes, but it drives me crazy. Wouldn't ya know that the one that buzzes is the hall light that we often like to leave on. I'm going to experiment with a new bulb and see if that solves the problem.

Our bulbs buzzed when we installed dimmers on our new light fixtures. Drove me nuts (short trip)! Either the lighting store rep or our electrician suggested switching to halogen from incandescent bulbs. We did and the buzz disappeared. The only time the buzzing returns is when one of the bulbs in the fixture over our kitchen table (it's a 3 bulb fixture) burns out.

I had this problem with pendants in my old kitchen. I switched to 60 watt bulbs from 100 watt bulbs and the buzzing disappeared. The 60 watt bulbs were still plenty of light for me.

As lisa_a said, switching to halogens might help, too, and then you wouldn't lose any light output (might gain some, actually).

What your electrician suggested is a good, cheap solution. You can find light bulbs in most hardware stores that are called "heavy duty" or "rough service". The filaments of those bulbs are less flimsy and consequently less prone to vibration which causes buzzing.

Also, it could be your dimmer. Most commonly used dimmers are rated up to 600 watts. If you add up the wattage of all your bulbs on that dimmer, and it's more than 600, replace the dimmer with one that is rated for higher wattage.

Also, some dimmers are just made better than others. Leviton makes more heavy-duty dimmers (called "commercial grade"). The heavy-duty dimmers have better filtering of the voltage rises which would cause filament vibration, and buzzing.

I can't believe how timely this post is because all of a sudden I've got buzzing issues in my kitchen! Having finally gotten my dining nook completed, I'm now actually dining (and lounging) in the space. So now, all of a sudden, I'm noticing a buzzing noise that I never heard before! It's a very short buzz -- maybe 5 seconds in length -- that comes maybe every 3-4 minutes. So here's my dumb question: Is that the kind of buzz you all are talking about? If so, here's the follow-up, even dumber question: do you hear the buzzing whether the lights are on or off or only when they're on? :-)

Martha--the buzzing I hear is constant when the lights are on and increases if I actually dim the lights. But not when the lights are off.

Thanks for all the other comments--I am going to try changing out lightbulbs and wattages--but later because it's a beuatiful day here and I am dying to get outside! I'll post my lightbulb results as soon as I get them--

I admit intensely disliking halogen bulbs because of the heat and also because in my experience they burn out much faster than they are supposed to and are such a pain to replace. Probably it was the fault of the old fixtures I had but for the time being I will stick with incandescents or CFLs...besides, you can't put a halogen bulb in a regular fixture, can you?

thanks again everyone--I knew the TKOs would come thru--and I will be back with more info soon!

Are your fixtures low voltage fixtures? They are several types of dimmers and it depends on the type of lighting you are using. If you have pendants from like a monorail system, I believe you have to use a dimmer that is compatible with magnetic transformers. If you have an electronic transformer, there are dimmers for that. I have personally found Lutron dimmers, switches and plugs to be higher quality than the Leviton products. Pass and Seymour is also good. Most of my leviton paddle switches all failed within a year of moderate use. Your experiences may vary. I am including a link to dimmers.net where I purchased some timers recently. I like the way the webpage is broken down by the type of lighting you may have. I personally have the Maestro dimmers and I like them alot.

Good luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: An example of dimmer options from dimmers.net

I only got the "buzzing" with those new fangled curly environmentally friendly bulbs. My old energy gulping ones didn't buzz. That's my low tech view on things!

"I only got the "buzzing" with those new fangled curly environmentally friendly bulbs. My old energy gulping ones didn't buzz. That's my low tech view on things!"

Make sure the CFL you are trying to dim CAN be dimmed.
Many are not designed for the chopped up waveform of a typical dimmer and can overheat and burn out and burn up.

Thanks, Holly for the explanation. I definitely don't have that kind of buzzing going on. Guess I'll have to look elsewhere to figure out what's going on.

BTW, like Homepro, I have Maestro Lutron dimmers. I love 'em!

Martha,
What type of lighting fixtures are you trying to dim? Do you hear the noise when the fixtures are not being dimmed? More information may get you more ideas to test.

Unless CFLs specifically say they can be dimmer, they are not dimmable.

Good luck!