Ten Tips for Holiday Electrical Safety

As residents across the Florida Keys start to decorate for the holiday season, Keys Energy Services (KEYS) reminds the community that standard holiday decorating can introduce serious electrical hazards if simple precautions are missed. 

Overloaded outlets, frayed wiring, and improperly rated outdoor cords account for thousands of home fires and electrical injuries nationwide each year. As part of an effort to reduce holiday accidents and to keep the holidays merry, KEYS has compiled ten simple tips for holiday electrical safety:

1. Never use nails or staples to secure light strings or electrical cords.
2. Do not overload extension cords and electrical outlets or connect more than three light strings together.
3. Inspect decorations before plugging them in, checking for frayed or loose wires and loose connections.
4. Turn off holiday lights while you are away from home or before going to bed at night.  Consider adding a programmable timer to ensure lights are not accidentally left on.
5. Unplug strings of lights before replacing bulbs, and replace burned-out bulbs promptly with ones of the same wattage.
6. When placing lights or decorations outdoors, use only decorations and extension cords certified for outdoor use. 
7. Plug all outdoor electric decorations into circuits with ground fault circuit interrupters (GFCIs) to avoid potential shocks.
8. Do not string outdoor lights on trees that are near or touching power lines.
9. On outside lights, use only extension cords and light strands explicitly labeled for outdoor use when decorating outdoors.
10. Electric light strands should never be hung directly on artificial trees with metallic frames or branches unless specifically designed and certified for that purpose.

For more information about holiday electrical safety, visit the Electrical Safety Foundation International at www.esfi.org.