GeoCities.us
» Heartland » Pointe|
GeoCities.us
» Heartland » Pointe |
Get your FREE home page! |
 |
|
What you're looking at in September: just a house. Ours. The ladder is up because I'm checking gutter clips, and those rows on the lawn are this year's strands getting tested. Every single strand gets plugged in on the grass before it goes up a ladder. Finding a dead strand on the ground costs you a minute. Finding it on the roof costs you an evening.
61 DAYS
to Lighting Night, as of Sunday, September 26
Friday, November 26 at 6:00 p.m.
the Friday after Thanksgiving, same as every yearShaina (10) and Kasey (7) throw the switch. Dena makes hot chocolate. Neighbors walk over, cars start slowing down by 6:15, and I stand in the yard watching for any section that didn't come on. There's always one.
THE 1998 NUMBERS
Light count by Dena, who counted every strand off my drawings. I don't argue with her.
Lights 38,000 Outdoor extension cords 61 Timers 9 Breakers tripped, Thanksgiving to New Year's 23 Weekends to put it all up 5 Weekends to take it down 2 Bulbs replaced during the season about 400 December electric bill $243.17 A normal month about $80 The lights run on timers from 5:30 to 11:00 every night, from Lighting Night through January 6. In 1997 an electrician I work with added three 20-amp circuits just for the yard, all on GFCI outlets. Of the 23 trips last year, 19 were the same outlet by the front walk during rain. I found the bad plug on December 20th. You're welcome, Dena.
HOW I PLAN IT
Every summer I draw the whole house on graph paper, one square to a foot: the roofline, every window, the spruces, the maple, the yews, the walk, the driveway. Then I draw the lights in colored pencil, a different color for each circuit. From the drawing I count strands, cords and outlets before I buy a thing. It sounds like a lot of work. It's less work than standing on a ladder in the dark wondering why the left half of the roof went out.
My rules, learned the hard way:
- Keep every 20-amp circuit under 15 amps. With 100-light mini strands that's about 40 strands to a circuit.
- Read the box. Most mini strands say not to connect more than three end to end. Believe it.
- Outdoor-rated cords only, and keep the connections up off the wet ground. I use old coffee cans upside down.
- No staples through wires. Plastic gutter clips and zip ties, period.
- Test on the ground. (See the live picture above.)
- Nobody goes on the roof alone. Dena holds the ladder and tells me I'm too old for this.
1999 PARTS LIST
bought so far, mostly at the after-Christmas sales last January
100-light mini strands, white 40 100-light mini strands, multicolor 12 Replacement bulbs and the little plug fuses 3 boxes Outdoor timers (the twist kind) 4 25-foot outdoor extension cords 10 Plastic gutter clips 500 Zip ties 1,000 Wire-frame reindeer (number four) 1 Rolls of electrical tape 2 And no, I'm not worried about Y2K. Every timer on this house is the kind you twist with your finger.
THE MILLENNIUM DISPLAY
This is the last Christmas of the 1900s and I intend to do it right. The plans, so far:
- Over 40,000 lights. Dena says she's counting by the box this year.
- The year 2000 in lights across the roof, each number six feet tall, bent from electrical conduit and wrapped in white mini-lights.
- A second star, on the garage peak, to match the chimney.
- The fourth reindeer, so they finally pull something. Still working on what.
- Everything on the house white this year, and all the color out in the yard. Dena's idea. She's usually right.
ABOUT THE CAMERA
Since last December, Dena's brother Gerald Rees and his wife Sheila have let me keep a Color QuickCam taped in their upstairs bedroom window, right across the street. It runs on Gerald's old Pentium 100 with Webcam32, which dials in on their second phone line and sends a new picture to this page every five minutes. If the picture is ever stuck on one time, their computer probably lost the connection, and I'll hear about it from Gerald. Thanks, you two. I owe you a lot of snow shoveling.
People have asked why I leave it running all year. Because people check it all year! In July somebody e-mailed from Arizona to ask when the lights were coming back on.
Lit up for
visitors since December 4, 1998Questions, light counts, wiring problems?
Last updated Sunday, September 26, 1999
E-mail Greg: [email protected]
