Yes, it’s that time of year again when you blow-up santa, or a snowman, or any other festive character of your choosing.
I do of course mean the rise of the inflatable Christmas decoration and for people who are still confused as to why we’ve brought this up: most outdoor inflatable Christmas decorations are also lit from the inside and we regularly get calls from people who need a replacement bulb or 3.
The most common option replacement is the 24v 3w SES/E14 pygmy bulb which is a standard small screw fit pygmy bulb just 42mm in length – most people tell us that each Santa or Snowman needs 3 of these, however don’t just take my word for it…
Check carefully!
With Christmas decorations, especially older ones the screw thread on the bulb could be an E5, E10, E12, E14, E17 – for more information on different screw cap sizes, please see our earlier article on screw threads.
Before ordering, check the following details:
- Voltage of the bulb – commonly 24v or 240v (mains)
- Wattage of the bulb – often somewhere between 3w and 15w
- Screw thread size – measure carefully, 2mm makes all the difference between E12 and E14! (please see E12, E14, SES, E17 – all fingers and thumbs)
Does size matter?
You may also be surprised to know that the shape of the bulb (the glass section) might not matter. As these pygmy bulbs are often hidden inside the decoration, if they physically fit they will work just fine – just check the voltage, wattage and screw thread size!
Here at My Green Lighting we have saved many family favourite decorations which have been passed down for years and were in danger of being thrown away because the right bulbs couldn’t be found until people got in touch with us:
“Just wanted to say I received the bulbs today and they worked perfectly – thank you very much for your help and advice. It was really appreciated and has saved a much loved Christmas decoration from the scrapheap!” – Mr McKenna from Glasgow who purchased these 24v 5w E12 Pygmy Bulbs.
Where to start?
If you still aren’t sure which one you need, start identifying your bulbs on our Pygmy and other small bulbs page and we’ll narrow down the choices for you.
We also have an increasing range of coloured bulbs such as GU10, MR11 & MR16’s which are often used to brighten up gardens at this time of year. Find your blue, red, amber, green, yellow, purple or magenta bulbs here: Coloured GU10, MR11 & MR16 bulbs
Hi just purchased 6 of these 24v 3w SES bulbs off you for my inflatable tigger but they do not work, they are the right voltage and wattage. Now I have tried replacing them I think there are 10 in the circuit, all 10 would not have to be workers with the element intact for these to work would they? Or do they usually have an internal fuse somewhere?
Thanks
Nigel
In most cases, these types of bulb are wired up in parallel inside the tigger / santa etc. This means that if one bulbs fails the others will continue to work. In this case it sounds as though it could be the transformer that might have failed, which would cause non of the lights to work.