Christmas light stories....

[Mr T]

Tis the electric companies favorite season! Lets hear your Christmas light horror stories!

Luckily I dont have much experience in Christmas lighting horror stories, other then the fact that last year, I could see the kitchen light flicker as the tree was plugged in :D :D :D

When i was younger, we had a beagle who ate some of our outdoor lights while they were on. Luckily they were the miniture ones that have bulbs in series and he dug into the far end. Would have been not good for him if he dug into the first part of the strand. We counted and there were 3-4 lights that were missing.

One of the best stories came from my wife's uncle. He was a personal manager for John Travolta. He mainly was in charge of the running of and upkeep of his 5 mansions. One year John's wife (Kelly Preston) wanted to put up "a few more lights", at their main place. When all was done there was a service upgrade and another service drop installed, dedicated to the lights. I forget the light count, but they had to hire in a few people to help put them up, it took almost a week.

(FYI, John sold off all his mansions, and moved to Florida. Her uncle was offered a job at his new place, but he turned it down to stay in California (he now does this for the CEO of Ameriquest Mortgage). Most people have a garage attached to their house. John now has a hanger for his 707. ) :D

[Mr T]

I cant believe nobody has any Christmas light horror stories!

[6pack]

cant say as if it was a horror story, but I do recall my dad putting up the lights on the dormer(years ago) after installing and realizing he had the wrong end(female at the point of plug in.Comr to think of it it was the tree lights.

[Roger]

I cant believe nobody has any Christmas light horror stories

Well I'll say this...I have a lifetime supply of extension cords given to me from correcting the all to common mistake of tooooo many extension cords used by my neighbors to connect their light strings.

[Mr T]

Well I'll say this...I have a lifetime supply of extension cords given to me from correcting the all to common mistake of tooooo many extension cords used by my neighbors to connect their light strings.
OK, after reading a few times, I thought you just went over and took them. At least they arent hooking 17 strings of lights together....."Why do these plugs keep melting?"

[K2eoj]

I had my xmas lights pluged into an outdoor receptacle on an indoor switch. One day i needed to do some repairs and I turned off the switch and went out to work on the lights. After getting shocked a few times I realized that someone had switched the neutral and not the hot. For years I had thought that the many strings of lights were safe when I hit that switch off at night only to find out that they were probably more dangerous. Another good reason to keep hots and neutrals in their proper place.

[scuba_dave]

No horror story...other the my electric bill
I should not have done this, but I added up the amps/watts of all of my decorations...we bought more this year - 75% off at Lowes!!

Switching stuff to LED as much as possible

Total = 60a....I may need to run subpanel once the garage is added

My house was in the local "paper" - about 2 dozen houses had pics taken & posted on the Internet

[scuba_dave]

As I'm unpacking & decorating this year I am adding up the lights & wattage
I am closing in on 10,000w - I started this record keeping last year
For lights I am "only" approaching 15,000 - but that is pretty close to actual

With only being able to connect 3 strings in a row I do use a lot of extension cords too. I have at least 4 dozen cords. But with running the 3 strings that can be connected so that they end in one area, it is possible to minimize the number

Once the garage & new driveway are in I will have a light pole at the end of the driveway & another outside outlet. Each side of the driveway will have a dedicated 20a circuit for lights
I'll venetually have (5) 20 circuits that can be used for lights
A lady in the next Town kids are old & sold me all (almost 4 dozen) her lawn decoration & nativity set - for $75

Some kids stole some 2 years ago & left a ransom note, they never decorated after that. Kids were never caught. I've now spent a couple hundred completing the set & buying more stuff

This year Sant & 8 reindeer are on the roof. Next year I want to set them up to "fly" like this picture
http://i15.ebayimg.com/02/i/000/77/98/a8ea_12.JPG

[dkerr]

Don't you just hate seting up those series type light strings. Chekcing them out finding the faulty bulb prior to puting the string on the tree, all lights check out, so they are strung on the tree only to have to trace them again after puting the string on the tree to find another fault.

[Under_Miner]

I would imagine with the growing popularity of LED lights we'll here a lot fewer "Clark Griswald" - type stories anymore.

Just had to add this one:

Aunt Bethany: Is your house on fire, Clark?
Clark Griswold: No, Aunt Bethany, those are the Christmas lights.

[bunkers]

But are these LED lights really comparable to regular bulbs? I know that solar powered LED lights put out worthless amounts of light. How much better are the LED christmas lights? Are they really a substitute for a C9 or a C7 bulb?

[scuba_dave]

The LED lights ROCK!!

That's from someone with 10,000 watts of lights!!

My C-9 strings (bah puny C-7's :eviltongue: ) take 175w EACH
I have over 3000w of these strings alone
A string of LEDS didn't even register a watt of power usage on my meter

I will be converting to LED as I buy them on sale after Christmas
My lawn display, santa & his reindeer have all been converted to Power compact lights. They use less power & but out more light
9w PC = 40w normal

I have changed over my entire house to power compact bulbs

[scuba_dave]

With installing power compact bulbs I've shaved about 600w off my total
So I have less then 9600w now (bought some more stuff)
(2) 20a circuits are now being controlled by a hard wired timer
I have some photocell timers not in use now

and still lights more to put up, but the majority is done

[scuba_dave]

For some reason cars are always coming down our dead end street & slowing down in front of my house :)

This pic is from before I finished, lots more after this was taken

Merry Christmas:santaclaus:

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y105/Daveywb/xmas/Full-View2.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y105/Daveywb/xmas/Front-of-house-final.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y105/Daveywb/xmas/Right-side-final.jpg

[Under_Miner]

Nice, all you need now is snow...;)

[scuba_dave]

No snow this year, about 80a - 15,000 lights

Next year, 180a - 80,000 lights
Animation & broadcasting music

55a of this is C-9 bulbs
With animation these will only be on maybe 25% of the time

I'm going to have to do some serious load balancing

[Bismarck Jack]

Wow Scuba_dave. How long does something that take you?

We have to start in September or it gets too damn cold to put up so many lights.

I would say you hold the blue ribbon for lights scuba_dave.

Once took plywood and cut out a 3D sleigh and 8 tiny reindeer. Drilled holes just big enough for the lights to push through from the inside and stapled the back so they wouldnt fall out. We then strung lights for the reigns. No santa as we planned to add him the following year. Overall, over 4,700 little lights on this set up.

....lights burning out from a few good storms caused a couple stings to burn out and needless to say...we retired the sleigh and the 8 tiny reindeer. I will see if i can find a pic. doubtfull as I have tried to put the experience behind me.:goodnight:

[scuba_dave]

I have 207a of lights, and a 200a service

I have purchased 23,000 LEDs for 2007
In 2008 I will buy more
Hopefully in 4 years I will have mostly LED's

My display will start to be setup in October
Red, Blue & Orange lights will go up for Halloween
Orange will come down & the rest will stay up for Christmas

I have a 100'+ Oak that will be decorated - you can see the trunk of it in the 1st pic. Approx 20' up will wrapped with lights, then additional strings will run out the lower branches

One "Mega" tree will have 4 colors & over 10,000 lights
I'm not sure how long the total setup will take. This will be the most lights I have ever put up
I have 1/2 mile of rope lights, and will need over a mile wof wire & extension cords to connect everything

There are people with more lights then me. I guy near Boston had over 100,000. And I site I got to a couple people have around 1million & some over

I'm actually starting a side business to sell decorations
I need to pay for this stuff somehow