Are you somebody who loves the festive time of year and cannot wait for Christmas to roll around? If so, you may have a wide array of decorations designed for both the inside and outside of your home and each year you try to outdo the neighbours by creating a fantastic display. Yet what should you do if you've run into problems with an electric blackout? Could it be the oversized Santa on the roof or the glowing elves on the lawn? Here are some ways to ensure you can enjoy your holiday decor but stay safe.
Understand the Limit
A lot has changed since last Christmas. During this time, you may have purchased some additional appliances for your kitchen or introduced a new entertainment centre in the living room. All of these innovations add a certain amount to your electricity needs and put an extra amount of stress on your circuits. You've also added some new decorations to your exterior display and when you take all of this into account, you've simply overloaded the system.
Find the Circuit Breaker
As you may know, the nerve centre of your electrical operation is in the utility room, where circuit breakers or fuses form the bridge between your power supply and household usage. While there are some dedicated circuits for energy hogs like an air conditioning unit, you have probably overloaded one of the all-purpose circuits that is designed for "everything else."
A typical home will probably have three or four different, general-purpose circuits, but may only have one or two circuit breakers or fuse devices to protect them. To get to the bottom of the situation, you have to isolate each one selectively and then go around each outlet to see if it is active or not. Only then will you know which component has overloaded the system and may have turned everything off.
Take Action
If it sounds like you may have reached the limit of your current capacity, then your best course of action will be to add an entirely new circuit in your home. As this is a job for a professional, of course, you should immediately call an electrician. They can ensure that you're getting proper electricity without the blackouts. In the meantime, you may have to unplug that extra reindeer from some of your power sockets if you are going to bring everything back to normal.