Halloween Lighting Safety Tips and Cool Tricks For Your Home
For some families, Halloween is that one-time-of-year adventure where everyone dresses up as some spooky or famous cartoon character. They then go door-to-door around the neighborhood collecting candy with their children. Lastly, they watch the insane amount of treats flow out of the pillow cases onto their living room floor. For others, it’s a time to hang outside their porches giving out sweet treats to the adorable neighborhood kids. Others may enjoy staying in, watching movies with the lights out, not caring about Halloween. Whatever the case, it’s still Halloween on October 31st in America. If you are decorating the inside or outside of your home, and inviting the children to your door for candy or tricks, it’s good to be familiar with a few Halloween lighting safety tips. We don’t want to bore you with safety precautions, so we are also throwing in some cool lighting tricks you can try when decorating your front porch, walkway, or yard.
Halloween Lighting Safety Tips
Never Overload Your Extension Cords
It’s fun to decorate the inside of your home as well as the outside; we get it. But PLEASE don’t overload those extension cords! They can overheat and cause fires. Also, make sure that the extension cord is rated for the lights/decorations etc. you are plugging in. There are two types of extension cords: outdoor rated and indoor rated. Make sure you are using the outdoor rated for the outside of your home, and not the indoor rated extension cord. You should really only use UL-rated (approved by the Underwriters Laboratory) extension cords, as these are constructed properly for safety.
Always make sure that the extension cords are not running through doorways or walkways/sidewalks. In other words, make sure that they aren’t exposed in a place that would be a tripping hazard outside for the little kiddies when they come begging for candy.
Inspect Your Old Lighting/Decorations Before Plugging In
Once-a-year holidays call for whipping out the plastic bin in your attic or crawl space, and reusing lights and decorations from previous years. This is all fine and dandy. The last thing we want to promote is wasted spending; however, PLEASE inspect your lighting for frayed or loose wires, loose connections, broken sockets and plugs, etc. This is another fire hazard that shouldn’t be taken lightly to save a few bucks.
GFCIs Are Your Friend. Use Them!
For added shock protection for your outdoor Halloween lighting decorations, plug them into a GFCI (ground fault circuit interrupter) outlet.
Never Nail Through Your Halloween Lights
PLEASE do NOT use nails to hang your string lights to your home, trees, walls, etc. ALWAYS use insulated staples or hooks when hanging your Halloween lighting, making sure not to staple through the strings.
Cover Outdoor Receptacles
Your outdoor outlets should be covered from anything that can get them wet (rain, sprinklers, etc.). A weatherproof cover over your outdoor outlets protects them from this. Even with overhang protection from a porch roof covering, it’s smart to have a weatherproof cover for extra protection from blowing rain on a windy day, etc.
Turn Them Off When Turning In For The Night
Keeping them on when you aren’t home or when you are sleeping poses a fire hazard, since they are constantly on without supervision. Always make sure you turn them off when no one is around! If you can’t remember to turn them off before going to sleep, put them on a timer and set it before bedtime.
Halloween Lighting Tricks For the Home
Use uplighting to highlight decorations on the ground in your yard.
String lights work well for illuminating certain decorations, and of course, lighting up the outside of your house and trees.
Use different colored lights, like dark blue, dark purple, dark green, etc. to highlight the creepiness of Halloween.
Consider LED bulbs since they won’t overheat.
Strobe lights give a flickering light effect that is a spooky appeal.
Illuminate pumpkins with string lights, or tea lights.
Illuminate your pathway up to your door with walkway lights with different colored bulbs (like the creepy colors mentioned above).
