5 Tips for Wiring Your Outdoor String Lights

Outdoor string lights are commonly used during the holidays or wrapped around summer porches, plants and trees. Since these lights can also be a fire hazard, especially when wrapped around dried trees or bushes, you must be especially careful as you install them. Follow the tips below when wiring your outdoor string lights.

Buy Extra Strings

String light bulbs can easily burn out. They usually come with a few replacement bulbs which should be enough to last for a few weeks. If you plan on having the lights outside your home for a long period of time, you should plan to get a whole extra set to make bulb replacement easy. Get the same exact type of string lights as your emergency replacement.

Monitor Fuse Faults

String lights have 2 tiny fuses on each side that is located inside the plug. These fuses are meant to be “circuit breakers” to avoid overloads before the copper wires on the string could melt. The way these string lights are made would make this occurrence impossible but some people make a mistake of using a staple gun to attach these lights on tree trunk making it possible for it to happen.

Another thing that you have to be watchful for it not to connect to much string wires on each other. Although the fuse has an extra outlet to conveniently attach string lights together, this could cause the fuse to blow up and these circuit breakers could help avoid a possible meltdown on the wires and thus, avoid fires. As much as possible, only connect 3 string wires to each other to avoid overloading.

Replacement Storage

Although string wires do not have expiration dates like perishable goods, it is good to mark these light with installation dates. These lights will eventually burn out as you use it every year so marking its install date is a good idea to know when to replace part of the lights or the whole string of lights.

Maintenance

Due to wear and tear, outdoor string lights will start needing maintenance. Always check for bad sockets, open wires, bad bulbs and other aspects of your string wires that is out of the ordinary. Remember to always unplug your string wires when doing your maintenance as this can cause electrocution if handled while plugged.

Waterproofing

There is no way to really waterproof your string lights but taking extra precautions especially if they are installed outdoors would help. Make sure that the fuses are located in areas where there is no rain or water access such as the porch.