Putting up holiday lights is likely to be a tradition in your household. Of course, you want to make sure you set up holiday lights in a safe manner to avoid electrical issues. The following are three ways to set up your holiday lights so that they operate safely throughout the season.
1. Choose a GFCI Outlet for Your Lights
Using a ground fault circuit interrupter, also known as a GFCI outlet, is one way to help your holiday lights to operate safely. The purpose of a GFCI outlet is to break the circuit when there’s an imbalance detected between incoming and outgoing electrical currents. This protects your wires from overheating and causing a fire.
2. Connect Only Three Strings of Lights Together
It may seem natural to connect all of your holiday light strings together and wrap them around your tree or porch rail. But, most holiday light strings aren’t designed to have that many amps of current moving through them. So, to avoid overloading them and causing a fire, connect no more than three light strings together.
3. Turn the Lights Off When You Leave Home
Even if you take every precaution, there’s still a risk that holiday lights can overheat. So, it’s wise to turn off your holiday lights, especially those on your tree, before leaving the house. That way, if an overload or fire does occur, you’ll be at home so that you can quickly call emergency services for help.
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