Christmas tree lights should not be left on for prolonged periods of time or overnight. Even LED lights can overheat, and with a combination of a dry Christmas tree, could cause a fire. Make it a habit to turn off your Christmas lights every time you leave the house or go to bed at night.
Using general estimates, however, leaving a lit tree on all night may tack on an additional $14 to your electric bill, as noted by Inside Energy. ... You can check the costs of LED lights against C7 bulbs according to the price you already pay for electricity. (Seriously, it's a fun calculator.)
A string of 25 incandescent C9 bulbs – the big plump ones often used outdoors – uses 175 watts of electricity, which works out to a whopping $15.12 to run over a season (assuming 12-hour-a-day operation for 45 days). ... If you swap those out for LEDs, your electricity bill shrinks to a little over 80 cents.
Holiday lights are OK to go up the day after Thanksgiving.
You can take them down anytime after New Year's Day, but before January 6th—that's Three Kings Day and the last of the 12 days of Christmas.
Can Christmas lights start a fire? Christmas lights can cause fires when a socket gets overloaded or if electrical wires are faulty. The lights themselves produce some heat, but they can never get hot enough to burn anything, no matter how long they are left on.
To put it simply, well-manufactured LED lights are extremely long-lasting and can be left on 24 hours, 7 days a week. This is because, unlike conventional types of light, LEDs produce minimal amounts of heat, which means they are unlikely to overheat or set on fire. ... In some scenarios, LEDs can and will fail.
Here's a breakdown of the biggest energy use categories in the typical home:
At an average of 0.45 watts per bulb, that's a total of 292.5 watts — or roughly 0.29 kilowatts — that the pre-lit tree uses at any time. ... That's 372 hours, which brings us to a grand total of about 109 kWh (the unit you'll see on your energy bill) of energy used by the pre-lit tree during the holiday season.
Because light strings have a maximum wattage capacity, which is why many string lights come with a little fuse just in case you connect too many together at once. ... However, if your circuit already has a number of items drawing power from it, you may begin "tripping your breakers" in the fuse box.
LED lights consume 80-90% less energy than incandescent bulbs, and last up to 100,000 hours, versus 3,000 hours for an incandescent. Combine this with the durable construction of LEDs, and savings extend beyond electricity.
How Many Watts do Christmas Lights Use?
| Bulb Type | Wattage per Bulb | Cost of Powering 10, 100-bulb strands (at avg. $0.12/kWh)* |
|---|---|---|
| Incandescent C7 (2”) light | 5 | $126.00 |
| Incandescent C9 (3”) light | 7 | $176.40 |
| LED mini light | .07 | $1.76 |
| LED C9 (3”) light | .09 | $2.27 |
Yet No Comments