If you have gone into any department store lately, you will not have missed that the holiday season is officially upon us. Thanksgiving weekend is traditionally when many people take the time to decorate their homes with Christmas décor. Where anyone can be decorating from now until December 24th, often the Christmas lights are strung, whether indoor, outdoor or both. Today, we at Burley Electrical Services would like to take the opportunity to share how you can safely string lights together,
How to Connect Multiple Strands of Christmas Lights Together
Both LED lights and incandescent lights have their own specs and you need to make sure you know which type of lights you are doing.
LED Holiday String Lights: Connecting 265-feet of strands together only uses 38-watts and could be plugged into a single outlet, though LED lights initially cost more, and then only about $1 for the season. These lights will last 10 times longer than incandescent lights and only use about a tenth of the wattage.
Incandescent Holiday String Lights: If you opt for the cheaper incandescent strings. With each individual string requiring its own outlet, the comparable length of incandescent string lights consumes 1,925-watts; and the cost is an estimated 50$ for the seasons.
Can You Connect More than 3 Strands of Lights?
To avoid blowing circuit breakers or in-line fuses, determine how many strands of Christmas lights you can safely string together no matter which light bulbs style with the help of these holiday string light safety lights.
Know the Maximum Load: First, plan the circuit or circuits the holiday lights will be plugged into. After finding the breaker on your home’s electrical box, take note on whether it is a 15 or 20-amp circuit. No matter which style of lights you decide on, you should never exceed more than 80% of circuit capacity. This will help you from overheating tripped breaker, and potential electrical fires.
Keep in Mind What is Also Running on that Circuit: Any other items running on that same circuit, from lighting to appliances, should count with that 80% max circuit load. By letting you install as many outlets as you need, install a separate, dedicated circuit for holiday lights is best as it makes the math simpler and reduces the need for extension cords.
Check the Wattage of String of Lights: The UL has the math done, which limits the need for brain-melting holiday math endeavors. Frequently, the label indicates the number of lights that can be safely strung together, which is either on the box or cord’s tag.
Apply the Warning: Although the LED lights don’t have this issue being that they use less energy, be sure to not exceed a maximum of 210-watts according to the UL tags.
Use a Calculator: To get the number of strings you can connect together safely per outlet, simply divide 210 by the number of watts of each string. For example, a 20-watt strand, that’s 10.5 string lights connected in series should not exceed maximum wattage, 1,440/1,920.
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To install a dedicated circuit and additional outlets to ensure your Christmas lights are done safely, call Burley Electrical Services and let our expert electricians get it done quickly, efficiently, ans most importantly, safely.
