Vacations and Holidays

Vacation

It is natural to expect a reduction in energy costs when you have been away on vacation. However, being away from home doesn't always mean there's no energy being used. You may find that your energy consumption has stayed the same or even increased. Reasons for this include:

  • Preparing for a vacation may mean extra cooking, cleaning and laundry.
  • Appliances such as your water heater, refrigerator and freezer continue run automatically while you are away. Because your home is closed up, your refrigerator and freezer may run longer than normal due to heat build-up in your home.

  • Appliances set to turn on automatically, such as lighting, space heating or air conditioning, will continue to use energy while you are away unless completely turned off.

  • Energy use can also increase when you return from vacation. Extra laundry, or the additional use of air conditioning or heating to bring your home back to a comfortable level, may be a few of the reasons.

Holidays

Celebrating the holiday season can impact energy costs as well:

  • More cooking and heating are used when entertaining guests during holidays.
  • In-home guests can increase your energy consumption because of additional laundry, television, lighting and cooking.

  • Home decorating with holiday lights will add to your energy consumption based on the number of lights used.

The holidays are more exciting when you use lights to decorate both the inside and outside of your home. While lighting does not use a large amount of energy, you can see a significant increase when several strands of lights are used over an extended period of time.

Cost of Lighting Breakdown

Use the chart below to determine the amount of additional energy used based on the number of lights and the hours of usage.

Costs are estimated based off having the lights on for 5 hours every day for 30 days at an electric cost of 15¢ per kWh.

Type of
light

Bulbs per strand

watts used over 5 hours

30 day cost

Average Tree Light

5 watt bulbs (25)

625 per day

$2.81

Midget Twinkle Lights

2 watt bulbs (50)

500 per day

$2.25

Energy Saver Miniature Lights

0.4 watt bulbs (50)

90 per day

$0.41

Outside Lights

7 watt bulbs (20)

700 per day

$3.15

Icicle Lights

1.9 watt bulbs (150)

1440 per day

$6.48

Bright Ideas for Safe Holiday Lighting

The holiday season brings beautiful decorations and imaginative use of holiday lights. Celebrate the holidays safely by following these lighting tips:

  • Inspect all seasonal lights for frayed cords, loose connections and broken sockets before using them.
  • If you buy new lights, purchase only lights with the certification mark of a nationally recognized testing laboratory, such as the Underwriters Laboratories (UL) mark. List of testing labs and their marks:
  • Replace damaged electrical cords instead of repairing them.
  • Don’t plug all your extra seasonal lights into one socket or circuit.
  • Keep your tree in water and your light cords dry.
  • Don’t let tree light bulbs touch needles and branches.
  • Never use electric lights on a metallic tree. Use colored directional lights instead.
  • Never use indoor lights outside.
  • Attach outdoor lights with hooks. Don’t put staples, nails or tacks through cords.
  • Plug all outdoor lighting into ground fault circuit interrupter (GFCI) outlets only.
    • These outlets have small test and reset buttons.
  • Tape all outside extension cord connections to seal out moisture.
  • Turn off lights when you leave the house or go to bed.