Christmas Lights-What it will add to your electric bill/Costs$$

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Cost of Christmas Lights

A friend of mine had a concern as to the cost to keep the Christmas lights on during this holiday season. As it so happens, I have a specialty in electrical systems. So, how much does it cost?

Let’s assume 5 strands of 150 lights each, for a total of 750 lights. We’re going to be old school and use the regular “white” Christmas lights, not LED’s. Christmas lights use “about 25 watts per 50-bulb strand”[1][2]. 750 lights is electrically equivalent to 15 50-bulb strands, or 15 \: \text{50-bulb strands} \times 25 \: \text{watts} = 375 \: \text{watts}. The base rate for electricity in Seattle[3] is 3.86¢[4] per kWh[5].

Thus, 375 \: \text{watts} \times \frac{1 \: \text{kW}}{1000 \: \text{watts}} \times \frac{24 \: \text{hours}}{\text{day}} \times 60 \: \text{days} \times \frac{\$0.036 }{\text{kW} \times \text{hour}} = \$19.40

Remember, that’s if you left the lights on all the time for two straight months. If you left them on for 8 hours a day instead of 24 hours, that would be $6.48.

Similarly, if you only used 2 strands of 150-bulbs each for 8 hours a day, that would be $2.59.

Or, if you used 2 strands of 50-bulbs each for 8 hours a days, that would also be grand total of 86.4 cents.

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