What are those appropriate parts?
The reason Im asking is because I have some house lamps that are burning out way to fast, like after a week from replacing them. And I've been very careful of not touching them with my fingers, and always using gloves. So I was thinking maybe its getting to much power? Could that be a reason?
Everyone is correct in advising you to have someone show you how to meter properly. I am not a fan of the "stick the probes into the socket" method because you are metering where the load is supposed to be instead of metering the circuit with a load attached.
As for your houselight issue, I am going to assume that these are connected to a dimming system. (If not, ignore this post) Dimmers chop voltage (this has been covered in many threads) and thus you do not get a true sine wave of power, even at full. Many cheap DMMs are only designed for reading a true sine wave and can get confused and produce false readings when they read a dimming circuit. The way to avoid these false readings is to use a true RMS (RootMeanSquare) meter. This type of meter is a bit more expensive (see the "my meter is better than yours" discussion to which Shiben was referring) but it will average the readings it gets on a circuit that doesn't have a true sine wave and give you a more accurate representation of voltages on that circuit.
The other thing to check here, and I am sure is what lead you to ask the question of how much power you are getting at each circut, is what lamp you are using and is it rated for the voltage that is being provided to it. I would suspect that, unless you have an electrical problem, your lamps are not rated for the voltage being supplied to them (ie.: 115V lamps being fed 120V) and are being overdriven and exhausted faster. A simple(er) check might be to compare lamps that you are using in the other sections of your houselights that are not experiencing this issue and make sure that they have the same voltage rating.
Fear is a great motivator for protection of the species. But knowledge can serve to allay fear. To that end, see Fluke's Electrical Measurement Safety Program, and order the free CD.Haha all this talk has got me scared to use a DMM! Now I'm afraid I'll get electrocuted!!
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