Different types of modern electric lamps are available in the market today. Sometimes, when you wish to buy one, you get a little confused as to which one you should go for. There are a couple of things people consider while buying a new electric lamp. The foremost concern is usually about the amount of electricity it will consume.
The amount of electricity consumed by a lava lamp would depend on its size. For example, a small lava lamp would consume around 15 watts of electricity while a large lava lamp with 13 inches of liquid would consume about 100 watts of electricity.
In the last several years, lava lamps have gained enormous popularity and are being preferred by many. As is the case with any other lamp, the first question that comes to your mind when you buy a lava lamp is whether maintaining it would prove to be expensive and challenging. Before getting to answer that question, let us try and get an understanding of the operation or mechanics of a lava lamp.
How Does A Lava Lamp Work?
A regular lava lamp consists of a halogen or incandescent lamp. The lamp features a tall and large-sized bottle that is made of glass. When this lamp was initially devised in the late 60s, experts came up with a formula that necessitated the use of water and a transparent mixture comprising carbon tetrachloride, paraffin wax, and mineral oil. The manufacturer or even the user has the option to apply transparent dyes to the mineral oil to make it look more colorful and vibrant.
The amount of density offered by regular wax is much less than water. That is the reason you see wax drifting on top of the lamp at any given temperature.
Carbon tetrachloride, which happens to be one of the major components inside the lamp, is a lot heavier than water. Therefore, it is mixed with wax to ensure that its density remains higher than water at room temperature. When the lamp is heated up, the wax mixture expands substantially and ends up becoming less dense than water.
It also becomes a little watery and spots of the wax move towards the top of the lamp where they become cooler with time. After a while, wax blobs move back towards the bottom of the lamp. A wire coil made of metal and present at the bottom of the bottle helps in breaking down the surface tension and getting the blobs of wax to blend once they come back to their original position.
Lamps that have been manufactured since the year 1970 do not contain carbon tetrachloride as their sale and consumption were banned by the Government in the same year. It was found that it contains certain toxic elements that could prove to be very harmful to those who use products having carbon tetrachloride even in minimal quantities.
The wax takes between 45-60 minutes to get sufficiently heated up and form a large number of blobs that would rise up and down freely. If the temperature inside the room or the place where the lamp is located is much below the room temperature, the wax might take as long as two hours or more to warm up.
How Many Watts Of Electricity Does A Lava Lamp Use?
As lava lamps are marketed as decorative lamps, a lot of people tend to believe that they consume a lot of electricity. That is not entirely true. Lava lamps come in different sizes and there are different models of this product.
Most of the time, you have to take into account the size of the lamp to get a rough idea of the amount of electricity it will consume. If you buy a small-sized lava lamp that can be positioned on your study table, you would not have to worry too much about electricity bills. A bigger, standing floor lamp would consume a lot more electricity than a smaller one.
A floor-standing lava lamp has a huge platform or base and features a large-sized heating bulb. Therefore, it will need a larger amount of electricity to ensure that the lava inside it melts properly and the lamp produces the desired visual or lighting effects.
How many watts does a lava lamp use:
- Small-sized lava lamps – the ones that are less than 5 inches long – require 15W bulbs.
- The ones that are 6 inches long or bigger need 25W bulbs.
- Medium-sized lamps (around 8 inches in size) need 30W bulbs.
- 40W bulbs are more suitable for broader devices.
- Heavy or large-sized lamps that contain around 13 inches of liquid would require bulbs with a capacity of 100W.
Conclusion
Buying a small or large-sized lava lamp is completely a personal choice and is influenced by the kind of décor you want in your house. Usually, there would be a label attached at the bottom of the base of the lamp which would give you a lot of technical information about the lamp including the kind of bulb it uses and the amount of electricity it will consume.