Bring Your Christmas Lights Back to Life Safely

Where have your Christmas Lights been all year?  Mine have been in a cardboard box shoved under the stairs.  You may have stored yours in the garage, the attic, the cellar or even in the back of the closet. No matter how carefully you pack them away (and I confess to not doing this very thoroughly) movement of the box, things shoved on top of them and changes in temperature and humidity can loosen and damage bulbs and wiring.

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Test your lights before you arrange them on the Christmas tree because it is a real pain when you get everything arranged for the grand ‘switch on’ and it doesn’t work. Try them out first.

You will need spare bulbs and a bulb tester. Sometimes these come free with the original lights, or you may have to buy some replacement bulbs. Before you go to the store take one bulb out of its socket and take it with you. That way you won’t come back with the wrong ones.

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There is another method, of course. You put the lights on the tree, switch on and then start pulling and pushing each bulb in turn until the whole string lights up. This is time consuming and very dangerous.

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To test the safety of your lights, once you have replacement bulbs and bulb tester, first unplug the lights, and then untangle the flex so that there are no lumps, bumps, or twists in it. Lay the whole thing out flat. Check that all your bulbs are properly fitted and check the plug to make sure it has a three amp fuse and that all wired are intact. Don’t be tempted to replace a blown fuse with a higher rated one because your lights could overheat if there was a problem with them and catch fire. If you fit the correct fuse it will blow and cut off the electricity before this happens.

Sometimes the lights won’t work first time. If this happens remove and replace the fuse bulb. This is easy to spot because it is opaque (milky coloured). This may fix the problem, if not; you will need to test each bulb separately with the bulb tester to find the faulty one. If you don’t have a tester you will need to go through the bulbs, replacing them one at a time to find the faulty one.

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Never cut parts of a string of lights out because the remaining bulbs may get too hot and catch fire.

If this sequence doesn’t solve the problem you will probably have to buy some new lights which should be stored carefully in their box when not in use, so that you don’t have the same problem next year.

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