,
Charles Bishop wrote:

A building I'm working at has some brick lights - j-boxes recessed into a
wall, and a cover plate on them - that illuminate walkways. The owners
have changed the incandescent bulbs to fluorescent.

I saw a note on the cover of a light that said the tested voltage was
130V.

[snip]


Yeah, but go back to the beginning. The voltage should NOT be 130V.
Searching for florescent lights that will operate on it is a waste of
time. 130V will cause incadescant bulbs to burn out quickly, will
likely ruin electronics such as your computer and tv, and will damage
many motors. There's no reason to even discuss this any further, when
the solution is to get the voltage corrected. First. lets assume the
meter used to test the voltage was defective. Use another meter. If
it still shows 130V, contact the power company. They will likely have
to replace the pole transformer which is putting out too high of a
voltage. It should not cost the homeowner a cent either.

Ok, I can believe you. I'll test it myself, maybe tomorrow. In the
meantime, some more info to see if it helps. The building is a condo high
rise in San Francisco, CA, 17 stories.

The notes I saw were in pencil on the outside plate of the bricklights and
were done in 1969! I assume, perhaps incorrectly, that they were done by
competent electricians during construction or remodeling of the building
(don't know how old the building is). If this is true, is it likely that
it was a preformance test of some sort that used 130V? Is it likely that a
building of this size would have 130V, in 1969? Is it possible that the
160 bricklights would have been on 130V on purpose? Or is it impossible to
get 130V to one or three circuits if the rest of the building is
110-120VAC?

I'm asking mostly for curiosity now and to help the HOA if there's likely
to be a problem.

I will check tomorrow, but I only have a feeble meter, so I'm not too sure
of the results. I can at least compare the bricklight sockets to the
outlets.

Thanks,

charles