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Non-ImprovementsBy Jim Sulski Summary: Holiday light hassle can be avoided with these tips. Decorating for the holidays should be fun! When it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, people will be stringing lights across their porches, hanging wreaths from their front doors and perching plastic Santa Clauses on their rooftops.
But no matter how cheery the season, such jobs often come with a certain amount of frustration. One way to avoid that is to pre-plan your exterior decorating work. Decide how you would like to string lights and where the wreath would best look. Then, test the lights on the ground and line them up around the house on the ground. Determine where your power is coming from and try to loop the lights around in both directions to work both ways off an outlet. Make sure you have enough lights and make sure each string works by testing them. Then, choose a bright, clear day to install the decorations, Testing the lights on the ground will allow you to replace burned out bulbs before you hang the lights. All midget (or Italian) light sets today are wired in series - that means if one bulb goes out the other remains lit because there is a shunt device which continues the series. If the entire set is out, it probably means a bulb has worked itself loose. Unfortunately, you have to jiggle each bulb to make sure it's properly seated in the socket. With end-connecting light sets, it's also important not to overload a length of light strings with too many lights. That could also result in the entire string - or connecting strings - going dark. With midget lights, there should be no more than 300 lights in a length of connected light strings - (strings with a male plug on one end, and a female plug on the other). With the larger standard size (or C-7 or C-9) size bulbs, never connect more than 50 continuous lights together. Over connecting could result in a blown fuse - not in your home's fuse box but on the first string of lights being plugged into a receptacle. Some light sets have replaceable fuse plugs located in the male plug. Other sets will need to be discarded. Hence, you could plug numerous sets into the same receptacle, but just don't plug together a string larger than described above. For example, if you have an outdoor outlet with two sockets, you could run 600 miniature lights or 100 standard lights out of that outlet. Next, determine where your power supply will be coming from - preferably an outdoor outlet. If you use an extension cord to connect the lights or decorations to the outlet, make sure the cord is outdoor rated. Any outdoor outlets used should be a ground-fault interrupter (or GFI). It's the same type of receptacle that you would find over a kitchen or bathroom sink. If your outdoor outlet doesn't have a GFI receptacle, it can be easily converted to one for under $15. Just make sure to disconnect the power before you install the GFI outlet. If you don't have an outdoor receptacle, you can power your decorations by fishing an outdoor extension cord through a window. Clip the cord to the side of the house and keep it off the ground. A thick cord, however, may not allow you to fully close and lock the window. An alternative is drilling through a nearby wall or window frame. But you'll have to patch that hole after the holiday season. Never use staples or nails to attach lights or other electrical decorations to a house. Using a staple gun to nail down lights can be dangerous because you can short out the wires. To prevent any type of electrical shock, keep the lights and decorations unplugged while hanging them. The safest way to hang lights is to use any number of commercial fasteners that usually sell for under a few dollars and are available at home improvement or decorating stores.
© June 25, 2005. NOTE: This column is distributed by Real Estate Matters Syndicate, PO Box 366, Glencoe, Illinois, 60022. This column may not be resold, reprinted, resyndicated or redistributed without written permission from the publisher. © 2005 by Ilyce R. Glink. Distributed by Real Estate Matters Syndicate. |
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