Holiday lights without a call to the fire department

Holiday lighting is a wonderful thing and a real hazard, and the hazard is not the lights. It is the cords, the outlets, the ladder and the tree. Here is how to do it so the only thing that happens in December is the lights coming on.

Outdoors

• Use only lights and cords marked for outdoor use. Indoor cords are not rated for wet or cold and the insulation cracks.
• Plug into a GFCI outlet. Every outdoor outlet in a house built or rewired in the last few decades is one; if yours is not, a plug-in GFCI adapter is a few dollars, and an electrician can replace the outlet in half an hour.
• Keep every connection off the ground and out of the gutters. Water in a plug is a tripped GFCI at best.
• Read the tag on the light string for the maximum number of strings you can connect end to end. Incandescent strings are usually three; LED strings can be many more, which is one of several reasons to switch.
• Use plastic clips, never staples or nails, which pierce the insulation.

The math on a circuit

A standard household circuit is 15 amps, about 1,800 watts, and it is shared with everything else on it: the outdoor outlets, the garage, sometimes the hall. A single string of old incandescent lights can draw 40 watts or more; twenty of them is the whole circuit. LED strings draw a tenth of that. If a breaker trips, the circuit is telling you the truth. Do not reset it and add more.

Extension cords

• Outdoor-rated, heavy enough for the load, and as short as you can manage. The thin brown cords sold for lamps are for lamps.
• Never through a window or a door that closes on it, and never under a rug or a doormat. A pinched cord is a hot cord.
• Never a power strip outdoors, and never a strip into a strip.
• Cords warm to the touch, plugs discolored, a smell of hot plastic: unplug, and do not use that cord again.

The ladder

Ladder falls send more people to the emergency room in December than anything to do with electricity. Set it on firm, level ground, three feet out for every twelve up, with someone holding it. Never on a step, a deck rail or a truck bed. Do not lean out; move the ladder. If the roofline is more than one story, that is a job for a Pro with the gear, and every market now has lighting installers who hang, take down and store the lights for a flat fee.

The tree

A dry tree burns in seconds and a room in minutes. A fresh cut on the trunk when it comes home, water every day, and never near a heat source, a fireplace or a heater. Lights off when you leave and when you sleep. When the needles drop in a shower at a touch, the tree is done, whatever the calendar says. Artificial trees with built-in lights: check the cord every year, because they spend eleven months in a box.

Timers

The single best safety upgrade is a timer or a smart plug. Lights that turn off at midnight on their own are lights that are not on while everyone is asleep.