[jan powers]

:rolleyes: what wattage do you get when you put a 3 way bulb in a one way socket

[RickJ]

Whatever the max is on the bulb.

[hkstroud]

You get what ever the middle wattage is. A 50/100/150 bulb will give you 100 watts in a regular bulb holder. There are two filaments in the bulb, 50 and 100. On the low setting you connect to the filament of lower wattage (50 watts). When you switch to the middle setting, you are connected to the higher wattage filament (100 watt). When you switch to the high setting you are connected to both filaments and get the total wattage (150) . Usually the high wattage is the center terminal of the bulb and therefore is the only filament that can make contact in a regular bulb holder. That is also why the low wattage is always the first to go. You are using the lower wattage filament on the lowest setting and on the highest setting, therefore it sees more use, usually, than the higher wattage filament.