Decorate for the Holidays safely with these tips from Entergy

It’s the most wonderful time of the year and many people are preparing to deck the halls of their homes with boughs of holly and dazzling lights. While the pandemic has put a damper on the season, Americans are excited to revive their annual holiday traditions during troubling times. However, Entergy experts say if not done safely, the festive display can lead to physical accidents and fire hazards.

When it comes to decorating with lights, Entergy has a few suggestions to avoid safety hazards associated with holiday lights.

• Most modern strings of lights use LED technology. If you haven’t upgraded to LED, consider doing so. They don’t get hot, require little energy, put out lots of light, can incorporate snazzy technology, and last longer than traditional incandescent bulbs.

• Never leave your lights on unattended. This takes some effort, but it’s important. Turn off your outdoor lights when you go to bed.

• Don’t use indoor lights outdoors. Outdoor lights are sealed against moisture. When running extension cords along the ground, elevate plugs and connectors with a brick, to keep snow, water and debris out of the connections.

• When putting up lights outside from a rooftop or with a ladder, stay away from power lines.

• Plug no more than three light strands into one electrical outlet. You can calculate energy demand and maximum capacity of your home’s circuit, but, to be safe, keeping the number of strands down to three is a good rule of thumb.

• Toss out old lights. Old ornaments, old manger scenes, old figurines on the mantle: all good. Old lights, though, can be dangerous. Discard and buy some new ones, preferably LED. Modern lights have safety features built in that the older ones don’t have.

• Don’t put electric lights on metal trees. Metal conducts electricity. A frayed wire could energize your tree and deliver a dangerous shock.

• If you buy a real tree, be sure it’s reasonably fresh when you get it, then keep it watered. Christmas trees are the leading cause of house fires during the holidays. Keeping your tree watered will make it less flammable. Once it’s dried out, and certainly after Christmas, remove the hazard from your home.

Make the season bright. Cheer up your home and the neighborhood by lighting up the night. But do so safely by following these tips.

Entergy Louisiana, LLC provides electric service to more than 1 million customers and natural gas service to more than 93,000 customers in the greater Baton Rouge area. It has operations in southern, central and northern Louisiana.