Greetings, I am doing some troubleshooting on some exterior area lighting at my place of business. There are several flush mounted "can" type fixtures in the ceiling of the walkway that use 100W mercury vapor medium base bulbs. There are some other surface mounted fixtures on the side of the building that have incandescent flood lights in them, (medium base, PAR type, I think they are called). The question is, don't all mercury bulbs (& sodium bulbs, for that matter) require ballasts, just like fluorescent tubes? I don't want to test these fixtures with bulbs that were not intended to be used with them. A friend told me that any medium base will be straight 120VAC (in the USA) and that whether you screw in a mercury, sodium CFL, LED, incandescent, as long as the wattage does not exceed the fixture's rating, will work fine. He said it's only when you get into Mogul or other than medium base sockets that ballasts are used. Is this correct?

Was thinking about using a offset conduit nipple to replace an existing romex style connector on the top of my existing water heater in order to add a timer. This conduit nipple would feed into the new WH40 timer, and the romex would then feed into that - Giving me control access right at the top of the water heater. Any thoughts on that being a possible place or method to have the timer? (rather than on the wall in back of the water heater) Would the water heater be able to support this arrangement? [url=http://www.homedepot.com/p/qv/100120709]Halex 1/2 in. Rigid or IMC Offset Conduit Nipple-90401 at The Home Depot[/url] [url=http://www.amazon.com/Intermatic-WH40-Electric-Water-Heater/dp/B00004W4XI/ref=sr_1_2?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1393080459&sr=1-2&keywords=intermatic+electric+water+heater+timer]Intermatic WH40 Electric Water Heater Timer, Grey - Amazon.com[/url]