A crystal chandelier takes small screw lamps, E12 in North America and E14 in Europe, one per socket, and the light it gives is the socket count multiplied by the lumens of each lamp. Twelve 5 W LED lamps install 6,000 lumens on 60 W.
What bulb base a crystal chandelier uses
The base is a physical thread measured in millimetres, and the letter E stands for Edison screw: E12 is 12 mm (0.47 in) across, E14 is 14 mm (0.55 in), E26 is 26 mm (1.02 in) and E27 is 27 mm (1.06 in). A decorative chandelier with candle sleeves normally uses the small pair, E12 on a North American 120 V supply and E14 on a European 230 V supply, because the sleeve is narrow and the lamp has to disappear inside it. The larger pair, E26 and E27, appears on fixtures with exposed lamps and wider bodies. The two families are not interchangeable in either direction: an E14 lamp will not enter an E12 holder, and forcing an E26 lamp into an E27 holder leaves a contact that is loose at the centre pin. IEC 60061 is the standard that defines these threads, so the number on the socket and the number on the lamp box have to match exactly.
| Base | Thread diameter | Supply it is usually paired with | Where it appears on a chandelier |
|---|---|---|---|
| E12 | 12 mm (0.47 in) | 120 V, North America | Candle sleeve, small crystal body |
| E14 | 14 mm (0.55 in) | 230 V, Europe and UK | Candle sleeve, small crystal body |
| E26 | 26 mm (1.02 in) | 120 V, North America | Exposed lamp, wide body, utilitarian fixture |
| E27 | 27 mm (1.06 in) | 230 V, Europe and UK | Exposed lamp, wide body, utilitarian fixture |
How much light the fixture installs, socket by socket
The output of a chandelier is arithmetic rather than a mystery: socket count multiplied by the lumens printed on one lamp, and the result is what the fixture installs before any of it is lost to the room. A 5 W retrofit LED candle lamp rated at 500 lumens gives 100 lumens per watt, and a 40 W incandescent candle lamp gives about 500 lumens at 12.5 lumens per watt, so the two produce the same light from very different wattages. Twelve sockets therefore install 6,000 lumens either way, and 24 sockets install 12,000. What changes is the electricity: 12 incandescent lamps draw 480 W, the same 12 in LED draw 60 W, and the gap widens as the socket count rises. That is the whole reason a large crystal body can be relamped without rewiring.
| Sockets | Installed lumens at 500 lm per lamp | Incandescent draw at 40 W | LED draw at 5 W |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | 3,000 lm | 240 W | 30 W |
| 12 | 6,000 lm | 480 W | 60 W |
| 24 | 12,000 lm | 960 W | 120 W |
| 36 | 18,000 lm | 1,440 W | 180 W |
Those numbers describe the fixture, not the room, and the difference matters when a buyer compares a chandelier against a lighting plan written in lumens per square foot. A 6,000 lumen fixture in a 300 sq ft room puts 20 lumens per square foot on the floor before losses, which is a dining-room figure rather than a hallway figure, and a decorative body at a 0.4 utilisation factor delivers 8 of those. Read the installed figure as the ceiling of what the fixture can contribute, and treat the second lighting layer as the part that closes the gap. The conversion is 1 lumen per square foot to 10.76 lux, so 20 lumens per square foot is 215 lux.
What the wattage means at the breaker
Total wattage is the number the electrician needs, and it follows from the socket count in one step: 24 sockets at 40 W each is 960 W. On a North American 120 V circuit that is 8.0 A, and US branch circuits are sized for a continuous load at 80 percent of the breaker rating, so a 15 A circuit carries 1,440 W continuously and a 20 A circuit carries 1,920 W. A 36 socket incandescent fixture lands on 1,440 W exactly, which is the whole allowance on a 15 A circuit with nothing left for the rest of the room, so that fixture belongs on 20 A or on LED lamps. In Europe a 230 V supply halves the current: 960 W draws 4.2 A, and a 16 A lighting circuit carries 3,680 W at the same 80 percent rule.
| Sockets at 40 W | Watts | Amps at 120 V | Amps at 230 V | Fits a 15 A US circuit (1,440 W) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | 240 W | 2.0 A | 1.0 A | Yes, 17 percent |
| 12 | 480 W | 4.0 A | 2.1 A | Yes, 33 percent |
| 24 | 960 W | 8.0 A | 4.2 A | Yes, 67 percent |
| 36 | 1,440 W | 12.0 A | 6.3 A | At the limit, no margin |
The same fixture on 5 W LED lamps draws 180 W at 36 sockets, which is 1.5 A at 120 V and 12.5 percent of the circuit, and that is why a relamp is often the cheapest way to add a chandelier to an existing room without pulling a new cable. Two cautions belong here. The rating that governs is the one printed on the socket or on the fixture label, not the one in a listing, and a socket marked 40 W is not improved by a 60 W lamp however efficient the lamp claims to be. The other is that the wattage of an LED retrofit is not the wattage the fixture was designed around, so a fixture rated for 40 W incandescent lamps can safely run 5 W LED lamps and cannot automatically run a 25 W LED array.
Dimming: the number on the dimmer, not the lamp
A dimmer is rated twice, once for incandescent load and once for LED load, and the two ratings are far apart: a common wall dimmer carries 600 W of incandescent lamps and 150 W of LED lamps, because the inrush of an LED driver is harder on the triac than the steady draw of a filament. That makes the arithmetic decisive at the top of the range. Twenty-four 40 W incandescent lamps are 960 W, which is over the 600 W incandescent rating and needs a 1,000 W dimmer or a split circuit; the same 24 sockets on 5 W LED lamps are 120 W, which sits inside the 150 W LED rating of the same dimmer. Between the two, a 12 socket fixture is 480 W on incandescent, inside 600 W but with a warm dimmer at the top of its travel.
| Load | 12 sockets | 24 sockets | 36 sockets | Against a 600 W incandescent dimmer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 40 W incandescent | 480 W | 960 W | 1,440 W | 12 fits, 24 and 36 do not |
| 5 W LED retrofit | 60 W | 120 W | 180 W | 12 and 24 fit the 150 W LED rating, 36 does not |
The lamp has to be dimmable in its own right, and a retrofit LED that is not marked dimmable will flicker or drop out at the bottom of the travel regardless of the dimmer. Compatibility between a specific dimmer and a specific LED driver is a tested pairing rather than a specification, so the practical move is to buy one lamp, fit it in one socket, and dim it through the full range before ordering the rest. Flicker limits that can be written into a purchase are PstLM at or below 1.0 and SVM at or below 0.4, with IEEE 1789-2015 as the reference for the modulation depth that produces them.
Replaceable sockets against integrated LED
A fixture either takes lamps you can change or carries an LED module sealed into the body, and the two are bought for different reasons. A replaceable socket design puts the failure point in a lamp that costs a few dollars and can be changed from a ladder, which matters in a room where the chandelier hangs 6 m above the floor. An integrated LED design puts the light engine, the driver and the heat path inside the fixture, and its rated life is quoted for the module rather than for a lamp: 25,000 hours to 50,000 hours is the usual band, which at 5 hours a day is 14 to 27 years. The trade is that when a driver fails, the repair is a fixture service rather than a lamp change, and the light engine is specific to that body.
| Criterion | Replaceable socket | Integrated LED |
|---|---|---|
| What fails first | The lamp, changed from a ladder | The driver, serviced in the fixture |
| Rated life | 15,000 h to 25,000 h per LED lamp | 25,000 h to 50,000 h for the module |
| Light output over time | Restored at every relamp | Declines with the module, no relamp |
| Spare parts | Standard lamp, bought anywhere | Driver and module from the maker |
| Best for | High ceilings, long ownership, changing taste in colour | Sealed bodies, damp rooms, low ceilings |
What to ask for before you order
Four numbers decide whether a chandelier can be relamped, and they are the four that listings most often leave out: the base, the maximum wattage per socket, the socket count and whether the lamps are included. Ask for the base by its standard code rather than by a photo, because E12 and E14 look identical in a picture at 2 mm apart. Ask for the maximum wattage per socket as a printed figure, since it is a thermal limit of the holder and of the wiring inside the body, and a holder rated at 40 W is not made safer by a lower wattage lamp alone. Ask for the socket count, because it is the multiplier behind both the installed lumens and the load on the circuit. Ask whether lamps ship with the fixture, because a chandelier that arrives without them cannot be tested on the day it is hung, and the second trip up the ladder is the expensive one.
Our own catalogue shows why the question is worth asking. Across 1,381 active product descriptions on 19 October 2026, 292 mention a bulb and 276 state that lamps are included, while 25 name a socket standard at all, 10 of them E14 and 15 of them E27. Integrated LED appears in 36 descriptions. The base is therefore the one specification a buyer is most likely to have to request directly, and it is a single line in a reply rather than a negotiation.
When a replaceable-bulb chandelier is not the right choice
There are rooms where the sealed fixture is the better buy, and naming them saves a return. A chandelier hung in a void above 6 m is a maintenance problem before it is a lighting problem, and a module rated at 50,000 hours removes the annual relamp that a socket design would demand from a scaffold. A bathroom or a covered porch pushes the fixture into a damp or wet location, where a sealed body with a gasket is easier to list than an open socket, and a listed assembly is what an inspector asks for. A crystal body with closely packed tiers traps heat around the lamps, and a fixture rated for 25 W per socket may be the honest ceiling in that design. A period restoration that has to match an original lamp will want the socket, and a new build with a lighting designer will want whatever the schedule specifies.
Where the lamps are chosen, chandelier colour temperature and dimming covers the colour and the flicker limits that sit behind these numbers. Where the total is being matched to a room, lumens per square foot by room turns an installed figure into a delivered one. Where the circuit and the switch are being planned, lighting schedule and rough-in sets the order of the work. The bodies that take standard candle lamps are in our crystal chandelier collection.
Numbers and where they come from
Every figure on this page is one of three things: a thread or circuit definition taken from a published standard, an arithmetic result from the tables above, or a count from our own product export, and the table says which of the three it is. Two cautions belong with it. The 40 W and 5 W figures are the pair used in the worked examples, and the lamp you actually buy will be printed with its own lumen output, so the arithmetic should be redone with that number rather than with the pair used here. The utilisation factor of 0.4 is a convention for a decorative fixture in a domestic room rather than a measurement, and a room with dark walls and a dark floor delivers less than the table predicts. Where a figure comes from a standard, the edition and the local interpretation govern, and the authority having jurisdiction decides the last word.
| Figure | Value | Source | Nature |
|---|---|---|---|
| Screw base diameters | E12 12 mm, E14 14 mm, E26 26 mm, E27 27 mm | IEC 60061 | Standard |
| Incandescent candle lamp | 40 W at about 500 lm, 12.5 lm/W | Lamp catalogue band | Typical, not a minimum |
| LED candle lamp | 5 W at 500 lm, 100 lm/W | Retrofit lamp band | Typical, not a minimum |
| Branch circuit allowance, US | 80 percent of the breaker rating | NEC 210.19(A)(1) and 210.20(A) | Standard, interpreted locally |
| 15 A circuit at 120 V | 1,800 W nominal, 1,440 W continuous | Arithmetic | Calculated |
| 20 A circuit at 120 V | 2,400 W nominal, 1,920 W continuous | Arithmetic | Calculated |
| 16 A circuit at 230 V | 3,680 W nominal, 2,944 W continuous | Arithmetic | Calculated |
| Dimmer ratings | 600 W incandescent, 150 W LED | Common wall dimmer label | Typical, read the label |
| Flicker limits | PstLM at or below 1.0, SVM at or below 0.4 | IEEE 1789-2015 practice | Standard, measurement method |
| Utilisation factor | 0.4 for a decorative fixture in a domestic room | Lighting design convention | Convention, not a standard |
| Lumens per square foot to lux | 1 lm/sq ft equals 10.76 lux | Unit definition | Arithmetic |
| Catalogue size | 1,381 active products | Shopify export, 19 October 2026 | First party, recomputed |
| Descriptions mentioning a bulb | 292, of which 276 state lamps are included | Same export, description text | First party, recomputed |
| Descriptions naming a socket standard | 25, of which 10 E14 and 15 E27 | Same export, description text | First party, recomputed |
| Descriptions naming integrated LED | 36 | Same export, description text | First party, recomputed |
Related reading: once the lamp type is settled, what sits around the lamp still changes the light, which is why shade material matters more than the frame.
Related reading: the socket standard fixes which lamps fit, not whether they dim well. Dimmer compatibility for a multi-lamp chandelier covers the load window, the leading-edge and trailing-edge difference, and the flicker that shows up only near the bottom of the travel.