XMAS Tree lights

[Greg1707]

There are restaurants and hotels that have year round outdoor lighting. These are typically wrapped around tress. I would call them "Xmas lights." Are these commercial grade or just Home Depot lights?

 

[infinity]

My guess is that there same cheap junk that you can buy in a big box store. Technically according to the NEC that can not be used year round if they're a certain type of light.

 

[VirutalElectrician]

Home Depot does sell "commercial grade" lighting.

These lights are typically C9 lights custom cut from a 1000' roll using SPT-1 wire. I too see them all over, up and in use for years at a time, which would seem to be in violation of the NEC. But those who install them aren't electricians and typically don't care. Put them up, get check, see tail lights.

However, even the ones I've seen up for years at a time show no significant deterioration.

 

[Joethemechanic]

Technically according to the NEC that can not be used year round if they're a certain type of light.

Wow, so Gretchen is in violation of the NEC.

'Cause I'm a redneck woman, I ain't no high class broad
I'm just a product of my raising, I say, "Hey y'all" and "Yee-haw"
And I keep my Christmas lights on, on my front porch all year long
And I know all the words to every Charlie Daniels song
So here's to all my sisters out there keeping it country
Let me get a big "hell yeah" from the redneck girls like me
Hell yeah! (Hell yeah!)

What is the electrical code for wiring trees? The town I grew up in had a traffic light mounted to a tree. Even as a kid I thought that was really odd.

 

[gadfly56]

IIRC, somewhere there is a 90-day limit on outdoor wiring for temporary light displays. But that's for EACH holiday. I don't think it would be too hard to string together 5 holidays to keep things going year-round, especially with programmable lights.

 

[charlie b]

IIRC, somewhere there is a 90-day limit on outdoor wiring for temporary light displays.

Another member has disagreed with me on this point. I say that the lights are "utilization equipment," and are therefore not covered by the 90 day limit. That limit applies to the electrical installation, and to me that means from the breaker to the outlet. If that is, for example, conduit and wire to a permanently mounted outlet box with a receptacle, then it is not temporary, and can stay up all year round.

This was years ago, but here is my reasoning. Each holiday season, I would hang strings of colored lights along my gutters. I would remove the light bulb from an external fixture, and install an adapter to allow me to plug in the lights. In my view, it was that adapter that comprised the "temporary installation." Thus, within 90 days I was obliged to remove it and put the light bulb back in. However, I was free to leave the lights hanging from the gutters all year long (this is where the other member disagreed with me). I held that the lights were not part of the electrical installation, any more than a lamp that you leave on the same side table for years on end. I made the case that I could buy a box of holiday lights, and without opening it, I could toss it onto the roof and leave it there forever. That would not cause it to become an electrical installation. Nor would opening the box and hanging the light string along the gutter.

 

[Joethemechanic]

Another member has disagreed with me on this point. I say that the lights are "utilization equipment," and are therefore not covered by the 90 day limit. That limit applies to the electrical installation, and to me that means from the breaker to the outlet. If that is, for example, conduit and wire to a permanently mounted outlet box with a receptacle, then it is not temporary, and can stay up all year round.

This was years ago, but here is my reasoning. Each holiday season, I would hang strings of colored lights along my gutters. I would remove the light bulb from an external fixture, and install an adapter to allow me to plug in the lights. In my view, it was that adapter that comprised the "temporary installation." Thus, within 90 days I was obliged to remove it and put the light bulb back in. However, I was free to leave the lights hanging from the gutters all year long (this is where the other member disagreed with me). I held that the lights were not part of the electrical installation, any more than a lamp that you leave on the same side table for years on end. I made the case that I could buy a box of holiday lights, and without opening it, I could toss it onto the roof and leave it there forever. That would not cause it to become an electrical installation. Nor would opening the box and hanging the light string along the gutter.

Wouldn't the Christmas lights be like an abandoned circuit? I've never had any problem abandoning circuits as long as I disconnected them from the source and made sure they didn't physically interfere with safe working spaces or equipment operations. I've been in old buildings with so many old abandoned circuits. You should see City Hall in Philadelphia. You could probably live for years on the scrap copper you could cut out of the place. In the basement there are abandoned circuits that I believe were DC and probably from the 1880's. Abandoned telephone equipment and cabling too, Has to be trailer loads in that place