How To Fix Christmas Lights

Clasp some other flavor out of your strings of lights!

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Time

A few minutes

Introduction

Burned-out holiday lights, fifty-fifty the inexpensive kind, are often fixable with a small investment in time and money. Hither'due south how to diagnose and gear up common bug.

Tools Required

Materials Required

  • Light string fuses
  • Replacement light seedling

Figuring Out How To Fix Christmas Lights

Most of us take experienced the frustration of uncooperative holiday lights. Later a year of storage, Christmas tree lights oftentimes demand repairs before they're prepare for use. There'south a elementary way to solve the problem. Here, nosotros'll walk you lot through how to set Christmas lights.

Project step-by-step (4)

Step 1

How To Gear up Christmas Light Fuses

  • Christmas tree light repair is actually really simple.
  • First, slide dorsum the plastic roofing on the plug to check the Christmas light fuse.
    • Pro tip: Some Christmas calorie-free strings have more than than ane fuse, in which case they'll be adjacent to each other.
  • Replace any diddled Christmas lite fuses.

christmas lights fuse diagram

Step 2

Find and Repair Christmas Tree Calorie-free Bulbs

  • Test the Christmas light bulbs with an cheap tester.
  • A Christmas tree light tester is an essential Christmas light repair tool. Some Christmas light testers work by sliding each bulb through a hole, similar the epitome shown below.
    • Pro tip: Usually, changing a problem bulb (or tightening information technology) will prepare the entire strand.
  • The Christmas light tester volition indicate which bulbs are bad and need to be replaced. If yous're wondering how to set Christmas lights, finding the faulty bulb is often the quickest and simplest set.
    • Pro tip: For the Christmas calorie-free tester to work, the lights must be plugged into the electrical outlet correctly — the narrow "hot" blade into the narrow slot and the wide neutral blade into the broad slot.

christmas tree lights bulb tester

Step 3

Christmas Tree Light Tester Pen

  • With other Christmas light testers, similar the one shown below, you merely impact each bulb. Y'all can test an entire strand in a few minutes.
  • Sometimes you have two or more than defective bulbs, then just identifying 1 bad bulb may non fix the Christmas lights.

christmas tree light bulb tester

Stride 4

Prevent Broken Christmas Lights: Safety and Storage

  • Go along in mind that inexpensive strings of Christmas lights aren't durable. And so at the stop of the holiday season, take down the lights with care.
    • Pro tip: Don't pull too hard on the wires. A loose seedling, broken socket or frayed wire is sometimes all information technology takes for the strand to malfunction.
  • After taking downward the lights, plug them in before storing them to make sure they still work.
  • And then carefully wrap the lights in their original or similar containers, making sure the bulbs don't blindside together. Proper storage is primal to their connected success.
    • Pro tip: Wadding them up in a coil and stuffing them into a box will virtually guarantee they won't work next yr.
  • Also, be aware that well-nigh holiday calorie-free bulbs accept brusque life expectancies, about 1,000 to 1,500 hours. This ways the lights are designed to last i to iii seasons, depending on your usage.
  • Newer manner LED (low-cal-emitting diode) lights are the exception. LED Christmas lights can last 10 times longer than traditional lights.
  • To fix Christmas lights, the only tool yous'll need is a seedling tester.

Christmas Light Safety and Storage

Originally Published: December 01, 2020