Christmas Lights: Handling Electricity Safely
Easy How-To Tips for Safety in Electrifying a Lights Display
Nov 13, 2008
Electricity and winter weather don’t always mix. Rain, snow, wind, and freezing temps can black out wires and bulbs. So how can you power up your Christmas-lights display without blowing out the local electric grid?
Electric Outlets
Put your Christmas lights close to an outlet. If you don't have outlets near the spots that you want to light, get an extension cord — a heavy-duty cord rated for outdoor use. Look on the package for the seal of Underwriters Laboratories (UL), an independent, non-profit company that tests electrical products for safety. If a cord doesn't say UL, don't buy it.
A household outlet can pump out only a limited amount of power, so don’t overload it. Many experts recommend that you attach no more than three strands of Christmas lights or 180 bulbs (whichever is lower) to any single outlet.
Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter
You should also get a Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter, or GFCI — "the most effective means for protecting consumers against electrical shock hazards," according to Document 5040 of the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission. You may have seen a GFCI without knowing what it is; it's the little red rectangle between the upper and lower sets of holes on some electrical outlets. Document 5040 explains, "A GFCI constantly monitors current flowing in a circuit to sense any loss of current. If the current flowing through two circuit conductors differs by a very small amount, the GFCI instantly interrupts the current flow to prevent a lethal amount of electricity from reaching the consumer. The consumer may feel a painful shock but will not be electrocuted." GFCIs are especially important for Christmas-light displays, which face unpredictable weather and other hazards that can damage wires and bulbs.
Hire an Electrician
Have an electrician check your outlets and GFCIs to make sure that they're working properly and can supply all of the power that your display requires. If they can't, it's worth the money to have him install extra outlets. Otherwise, you might plug too many lights into one outlet, overload the circuit and cause a power failure or a fire.
Shut the Christmas Lights Off -- and Get a Timer
Controlling the flow of electricity may be the most important job in a lighting display, but nearly as important is a very simple task: turning the holiday lights off. You shouldn't let a display burn all night. If it does, it can overheat and ignite your home.
Still, it's surprisingly easy to let your vigilance drop and neglect to shut the power down, especially after your light display has been running trouble-free for a few nights. To prevent that mistake, you should get a timer that will turn your lights off at whatever time you tell it to.
A timer is usually fairly simple to operate. It's like an alarm clock in that you can set it and forget it. But you shouldn't forget it; like everything else connected with your lighting display, you should check it occasionally to make sure that it's working. It's also not a bad idea to buy an extra timer, just in case the first one unaccountably goes bad.
So it doesn’t take much to protect your home, even if you don’t know anything about electricity. Just get the right equipment, hire an electrician, and turn off the display occasionally!
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