Common Pool Light Bulb...size, wattage, etc

[rdonnalley]

Pool came with recent home purchase and we are new to pools.

Pool has two lights, one recently burned out. This is a large pool, likely 20+ years old (same as house).

Found wiki page on How to Change SP light bulb, but would like to have replacement bulb ready to go when I remove the light fixture.

Do I need a special bulb (from a pool store) or a typical house bulb? What wattage, more or less?

Any info appreciated!

[Teapot]

Forget changing the tungsten lamp and change to LED, that way you'll actually be able to afford to use them Lol.

[rdonnalley]

I might do that...though we have zero (actually negative) electric bills since we went solar in August.

But what size light bulb should I buy....are they normally spot light size or standard house bulb?? Right now it's a tad cool to go into the pool (75 degrees) to see if I can tell by looking at it from the water. Was hoping to pull the fixture and have replacement bulb ready to go. Maybe that's not going to be possible.

[Teapot]

Cool that you are running solar, even you can save some as your solar will receive quite a dent and I bet you would rather be running something else than a wasteful lamp.

Pool lamps usually look like a sealed beam car headlamp (obviously there maybe some in the USA that are different) they are often 300 watt lamps whereas the LED replacement is 24-30 watts and you can get colour changing ones so not just one boring colour.

[rdonnalley]

Pulled it out...it's a 500 watt! Will change both over to LEDs. Wasn't that big a deal to remove light and look at bulb. Thx for the advice.

[rdonnalley]

Pulled it out...it's a 500 watt! Will change both over to LEDs. Wasn't that big a deal to remove light and look at bulb. Thx for the advice.

FYI, I am in Central Mexico. The bulb is made in Mexico per markings.

[Teapot]

My fingers hovered above the keyboard and I nearly added 500 watt but I didn't want to sound alarmist.
I would be interested to hear how you get on and possibly a picture with the new light on.