When the weather starts to chill back down and the leaves turn a beautiful reddish-orange hue, it’s time to enjoy some fall festivities. One of the most notable of the season is Halloween. If you want to decorate your Lincoln, NE home to impress, there are some electrical safety tips that you’ll want to keep in mind to ensure everyone remains safe.
Don’t Run Cords Outside
If you live in an older home, it’s not uncommon to have a lack of outdoor electrical outlets. Many older homes only have one outdoor outlet or none at all. If you don’t have any outdoor electrical outlets, you may just consider running an extension cord from an outlet inside your home through one of your windows to the outside.
While this will certainly work to provide you with power for your decorations, it’s highly unsafe. The better option is just simply to have an electrician install some outdoor electrical outlets at your home. This will ensure that they’re properly weather-rated and you won’t have to worry about any extension cords sticking out of your home.
Use Outdoor-Rated Equipment
If you’re like most homeowners here in the Halloween season, you enjoy putting up decorations outside. It’s highly likely that you may use an extension cord or two to properly position your decorations. You need to ensure that every extension cord you plan to use outside is specifically rated for outdoor environments. These cords provide extra security and safety in regard to weather conditions like excess moisture and excessive sun exposure. If you end up using cords that are only rated for indoor use, they’re more likely to fail and can even cause problems like electrocution.
Use the Right Amperage
It’s important to keep electrical amperage in mind when matching decorations with extension cords. Every extension cord you use should be rated to match or exceed the necessary amperage for whatever decoration you plan on plugging it into. This helps to ensure that you’re not overloading the extension cord, which would end up as a big fire hazard for your home. You can determine your amperage needs by simply reading the tags that are on your extension cords and decorations.
GFCI Outlets Only
Every one of your outdoor electrical receptacles needs to be a GFCI outlet. This stands for ground fault circuit interrupter. Simply put, this is a special outlet that has a very fast-acting circuit breaker. It’s specifically designed to shut off power to the circuit in the event that there is a ground fault.
In fact, GFCI outlets will shut off power within 1/40th of a second. This helps to ensure the prevention of electrocution and other issues as a result of a ground fault problem. You can identify a GFCI outlet by simply looking at the outlet itself. Instead of being circular, the outlet will be distinctively square. It will also have a test and a reset button in the middle of it.
Inspect All Cords Before Use
One of the simplest things you can do to protect electrical problems at your home is to inspect your cords. It’s very easy to overlook this step when you’re decorating as you’re worried about getting your decorations out of storage and onto your lawn.
However, it only takes a couple of seconds to look over each cord to ensure it doesn’t have any sort of damage to it. If you notice any cuts in the protective insulation layer or any of the internal wiring is bare, you should have the decoration’s cord repaired before using it. Be sure to inspect all your extension cords as well.
Don’t Over-Fasten Electrical Cords
When you’re putting up your decorations, you want to ensure that they’re secured so that they don’t become damaged from weather events like strong wind gusts. You also want to ensure that you’re securing all the electrical cords so that they can’t be moved during these weather events. It can be very easy to use electrical staples to secure these cords in place.
However, it’s vitally important that you do not over-fasten your securing mechanism, like a staple. If the fastener is too tight, it can actually start to tear the protective insulating layer of the electrical cord. This will eventually lead to bare wires and an electrical hazard. It’s a good rule of thumb to grab a hold of the cord after securing it and ensure that you can still move it slightly so that it’s not overtight.
Don’t Plug Extension Cords Together
Throughout the decorating process, it can be quite frustrating when you don’t have an extension cord that’s long enough to meet your needs. It can be very easy to simply grab two shorter extension cords and plug them together. You should avoid doing this as it can lead to many potential dangers for your home. Probably the biggest hazard is that extension leads can overload and cause damage to both cords and other surrounding components. It’s best to simply invest in a longer extension cord to meet the specific length that you need for your decorations.
Unplug Before Replacing
Unfortunately, your decorations can experience light bulb blowouts and fuse popping from time to time. It’s absolutely vital that you unplug the extension cord or turn off power to the circuit before you replace a blown fuse or a bad light bulb. This helps to completely eliminate your risk of an adverse situation, such as being electrocuted.
Keep Cords Out of Water
It may seem like a very obvious fact that you want to keep electrical cords out of the water. However, when you’re outside decorating you may not be thinking about any water that may pool due to a rainstorm or snow melt. It’s important to take some extra time to look over where all your electrical and extension cords are running to ensure that they’re up off the ground. Furthermore, you should also ensure that all of your cords are out of the way of foot traffic. You never want your electrical cords to be stepped on as it can lead to damage to the wiring.
Opt for Wood or Fiberglass Ladders
If you plan on going all out during your Halloween decorating session, then you may find yourself using a ladder. It’s very easy to get caught up in the decorating process and trying to move quickly that you don’t realize where you’re putting your ladder. You want to avoid putting your ladder near any sort of electrical wires. Furthermore, you should invest in either a wood or fiberglass ladder as these don’t conduct electricity like their metal ladder counterparts do. This just provides you with an extra layer of safety in the event that you find your ladder against a power line.
Reliable Electrician Service
John Henry's Plumbing, Heating, Air, and Electrical offers reliable electrician services for people throughout the whole Lincoln community including electrical panel upgrades and repairs, rewiring, lighting installation, surge protection, and more. Our service professionals can also assist with all your heating, cooling, plumbing, drain, commercial, emergency service, UV air sanitizing, duct cleaning, and filter needs.
Simply call the [company name] office today to schedule your next service appointment in Lincoln and the surrounding areas.
