How to Repair Outside Christmas Lights
Decorating your home and front yard with Christmas lights can heighten the season's excitement and spread holiday cheer throughout your neighborhood. Outdoor Christmas lights are traditionally larger than indoor tree lights and built to withstand harsher conditions, such as snow and wind. When one part of a set of Christmas lights breaks, however, it often causes the whole string and all attached strings to go out. To repair a string of outdoor Christmas lights you must first diagnose the problem and then set about fixing it. Does this Spark an idea?
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Instructions
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Twist each bulb in the broken string of lights one by one to see if there is simply a short in the connection of one bulb that has caused the entire string to go out.
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Run a hum tracer along the string of lights to make the process of locating the bad bulb easier. A hum tracer is a device that tracks the humming noise emitted from each bulb through the wire that connects with the bulbs. When it comes across a bulb that is not humming as it should, it will alert you so you know it is that bulb that needs replacing.
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Replace the bad bulb with a new bulb of the same make. If the problem was indeed just one bad bulb, replacing the bulb will allow the whole string to light up as it should.
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Switch the fuse in the string of Christmas lights if the problem does not appear to be a bad bulb. Locate the small fuse box at the end of the string, near the plug. Open the fuse box with a flathead screwdriver and, using the head of the screwdriver, carefully pop out the small glass fuse. If the fuse is blown there will be a black residue on its glass casing. Replace the fuse with a new fuse of the same make and size and screw the lid of the fuse box back on.
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References
- Photo Credit christmas house image by michael langley from Fotolia.com
