Can You Use a Dimmer Switch with Halogen Ceiling Lights?

Halogen ceiling lights can make your room look brighter. However, situations often call for less or lower light. Since the dimmer switch after all was designed to lower the light level of a standard light bulb, read on to find how this can affect a halogen light.

Incandescent Light

The standard light bulb design is fairly straightforward. A small filament in the center of the bulb is heated by electrical current to a “white hot” state. The temperature reaches upwards of 4,500 degrees Fahrenheit. The glass bulb, which encases the filament, is filled with either a nitrogen or argon gas. The heat ignites and burns off the gas which produces light. This produces a small amount of soot, which covers the inside of the glass bulb, creating a clouded lighting effect.

A dimmer switch simply uses a resistor which “resists” electricity, slowing down the heat to the filament.  

Halogen Light

The filament in a halogen light bulb is surrounded with halogen gas. When this gas is heated, instead of burning off, it reattaches itself to the filament, creating a brighter burn. While the process and gas may be different in the incandescent light bulb and the halogen light bulb the electrical source is the same. The same resistor enables the dimmer switch to work quite well with the halogen ceiling light.