Keeping Post-Thanksgiving Light-Hanging Rituals Safe

Posted on November 26, 2013

For many families, once the turkey is put away, the Christmas decorations go up.  This weekend will see many people stringing up holiday lights atop and inside their residences.  If you plan on engaging in this annual ritual, then it’s important to do so safely.  Thankfully, a new report out of New York offers some tips that would come in handy.

You first must make sure that the lights haven’t fallen into disrepair since you last put them into storage.  Any bulbs that have broken need to be immediately taken out and replaced with new ones that are capable of safely lighting up.  If the cord itself has suffered excessive damage, then the whole strand may need to be thrown out so that sparks or a short circuit aren’t a possibility.

You can minimize the risk of a fire by refraining from overloading any one electrical outlet.  Every time you plug a strand of lights into the end of another one, you’re increasing the electrical load.  The report notes that you really don’t want to plug more than tree strands into one place.  If you have so many lights that this will prove difficult, then a surge protector is essential.

Keep cords out of the way of walking paths so that people can’t trip on them, but do not put them under rugs to do so.  When you do this, you endanger your home should a spark catch that carpet on fire.

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