Lighting up your Christmas the safe way
Every year we hear of horror stories of fires being started from Christmas lights being used unsafely. Many families all around the country like to get extremely competitive with their lightning displays to the point where it rivals a UFO landing site – so we thought we’d encourage a few practices to keep everyone safe and celebrate the festive season.
- Make sure the lights you are purchasing lights that are rated and designed for Australia electricity standards. It can certainly be tempting to purchase cheaper lighting options online so if you do plan to do so, make sure you read the specifications to which they have been tested.
- Most decorations use transformers of the brick variety to change the power being pulled from the wall to that which is required for the display to function. During this process the excess energy is thermal and can actually output quite a bit of heat. It is strongly recommended that the area your transformers are all plugged into is ventilated and that if you plan to use powerboards, spend a little extra to pick some up with built in surge protectors – and definitely do NOT put a double adapter into a powerboard.
- Leaving your Christmas lights switched on, or on a timer, when you go to bed is potentially life-threatening. We know you’ve spent countless hours arranging everything to be perfect and you want to show that off. Just remember to switch everything off when your turn in for the night – your electricity bill will thank you as well.
Lastly make sure all your smoke alarms are working properly. It only takes a couple of minutes to test and worst case it might cost a couple of dollars to put new batteries in. If you’re interested in reading more about how your smoke alarms should be set up you can do so here.
ParkTrent is wishing you all a happy and safe Christmas period.