Are you putting up Christmas lights this year or trying to save electricity?

I put up some lights, electric, not battery. Batteries are a bear to dispose. It’s Christmas, have fun with it.

I have always been a real scrooge about outside Christmas lights, to much work,cost,and bother, I don’t mind Mrs Squeeky decorating the inside of the house, but outside forget it,not doing it for the neighbours.
One asked us why we didn’t put up lights, and I asked him why he did as he was bitching about having to put up lights and screw up his weekend.
He said his wife insisted on it,said oh my wife could care less about outside lights.

@SQUEEKY2 Laughs, I’m on a rarely traveled town road with no neighbors. No outside lights.

No Christmas lights, but saving electricity has nothing to do with it.

Never took mine down from two years ago. Mine are LED so don’t use much power. Haven’t tried battery ones and wouldn’t. I have enough to go from one end of my front eave to the other end, about one every 4” for 44’ in 5 different colors.

New house, so we bought new LED lights. We’ll see if they were worth it.

We don’t have lots of lights. Just some on the tree and some waterfall lights under the verandah. That’s it. Since it’s only for a few weeks and not for 24 hours a day and I generate solar power, I’m not concerned about my environmental footprint.

There are 24 hours in a day. For the sake of discussion (and to simplify the math), lets assume you have the lights up for 41 days, and keep them on all the time. That is (24*41) hours, or 1000 hours; that is why I went with 41 days.

Assuming a string of lights draws 5 watts (the draw of one string of 70 LED lights), keeping the lights on 24/7 for 41 days will be 10 Kilowatt-hours. At $0.12/kWh, that’s $1.20 to light one string for longer than the holiday season lasts.

Since the season is shorter and you typically keep the lights off during the day, your bill will be far smaller. Lets first go with 6 hrs of light a day and up it to 40 string. Not four, forty; tens times the lights Enough to wrap the porch and then some. Twelve dollars for nearly a month and a half.

Maybe this will give you a better idea though. They assume 5hrs/day and a 30-day season. If you are the type that puts up the animated displays with music and all, the sort of displays that get YouTube videos, then you’ll still be under $50/month if you use LED lights. Old-school incandescent lights will cost 5–10x as much to run though, which means that an average house with 12 strings of lights and a couple lawn ornaments will spend ~$11/season instead of ~$1.50/season.

TL;DR – Unless you have the type of lights that would but the Vegas Strip to shame, you spent more money changing your lights than you will save on your electric bill.

Yep. Christmas lights go up every year the day after Thanksgiving. Christmas doesn’t feel right without them.

This is as far as we go with outside lights. I have a wreath and a few wooden Christmas decorations outside. I prefer to brighten the inside of our home during the holiday.

Electricity isn’t a concern for us during the winter months. Propane is another story.

If you live in a cold climate, and put the lights inside your house, you are not wasting electricity. Every watt is heating your home and replaces a bit of fuel used in your heating system. In fact, where I live, electricity is cheaper than heating oil. Leaving the lights on actually saves on total energy cost!

Putting lights outside the house is wasteful but it does look nice.

They use very little electricity, less than boiling a kettle over the course of the same period.
So yeah, of course we have lights up, happy times with zero downside.

I don’t put up Christmas decorations, but the electricity would be something I would think about. I would only turn on the lights when I am home and enjoying them, I wouldn’t have them on a timer.

@StaceyD The cost of energy from an Alkaline battery is at least 100x the price of what you pay for electricity from the power company.

Here are some numbers for you. Say you buy a pack of 4 AA Duracell Alkaline batteries for $2.50 (a good deal.) Each battery holds 3Amp hours (3Ahr) at 1.5 volt = 4.5 Whr each x 4 batteries = 18 Watt hours for the pack at $2.50. 2.50/18 = 13.88 cents per watt hour . Call it 14 cents/ watt-hour.

The power company sells you electricity at 28 cents per kWhr or 1000 Whr or 0.028 cents /per watt hour.

Batteries are much more expensive – as much as 500 times the price of wall plug electricity.
Keep the lights inside the house. That saves energy.

You can put lights on hooks inside your windows, have them on for the benefit of those inside the house, and they’re still visible to those outside. It’s also easier that way then going on ladders outside in the cold. You put them on and off at your convenience or you can use timers.

@LuckyGuy You pay that much? I remember the Northeast being expensive, but not that expensive! Where I live now the billing is slightly more complex, but the first 10 or 16 kWh (depending on season) per day is only $0.0545/kWh, and after that it’s $0.1204/kWh. I think the national average is around 11 cents per kWh.

@jerv No. I don’t pay that. I was giving her the best (worst) case scenario. (Highest price for electricity and lowest price for batteries)
I pay 12.5 cents per kWhr, all in. California pays a lot. Europe, Japan, Israel pay much more.

Disposable alkaline batteries are more like 1000x home electricity rates.

@jca IMO That is the best way to display lights. Everyone wins.

@LuckyGuy Ah. Well, the numbers shocked me enough that I had to ask.

The numbers are shocking. You need to have a technical bent to get it. Disposable batteries are terribly expensive. They should only be used when AC is not practical.
Note that I used the 3000mAhr spec for batteries to give them the best case. That is only true for slow discharge. Fast discharge they are only good for 700mAhrs. (meaning the price is over 4x higher!) My rule of thumb is 1000mAhr for an alkaline. It is easy to remember.

Want to know something almost as bad? Candles? On a cost per heat and light basis candles are 100’s of time more than electricity. It kills me that people think they can light candles to save on their electricity bill. Edison thought home electrification would enable lighting for those who couldn’t afford candles.

We’re putting up an artificial lighted tree and, but of course, a gaggle of lighted geese. haha
I have some awesome cool blue LED lights strung in my bedroom over a wicker shelf unit. I used to keep Xmas lights on at night in my garage year ‘round. They made a nice ambiance when doing laundry at night.

Our ranch neighbors across the hill have strung lights on 3 pine trees on their property, the effect is really pretty from our porch here. We’re more concerned with saving propane than electricity. Keeping the wood stove going with a stove fan blowing.

…Six Geese a laying
Five Golden rings…

four calling birds, three french hens and a partridge in a pear treeee…...

^ Two turtle doves?

^^^^ haha…oops, forgot the turtle doves.

I never put up lights or any sort of decoration.
Never, do you hear me?
NEVER!

@ragingloli Well of course you don’t, vampires die in the light. lol

I never put up lights but it’s because of the hassle, not the cost.

@downtide When the kids were little (well over 20 years ago) I temporarily ran a 50 ft string of lights around the ceiling in the kitchen stapled to the molding. They looked so festive on dark winter days and doubled as a night lighting for guests. They are still there!
I just plug in the plug that dangles in front of the outlet under the cabinet all year, and I’m finished with the lighting. It takes about 2 seconds – and all the heat stays in the house.
One of these days I’ll upgrade to LEDs but not until the old ones burn out.