Hi MST,
Thanks for the comments, yes it was a bit worrying which is one of the reasons I got involved rather than wait for the house to burn down
Securespark,
I’m not proud of the adaptors but needs must unfortunately, I am very careful when using them though and I make sure I only use fused ones. The one at Lorraine’s only has 3 sets of Christmas lights plugged into it so only has about 60-70 watts running through it. The one in my power cabinet has slightly more and has about 400 watts running through it. There are no more cubes in use anywhere else.
All the cables are run safely out of harms way and peoples feet so I see no reason to add further protection, especially as they are only temporary anyway. If I did use conduit or some other type of protection it would take forever to set everything up. I’m very confident that my display doesn’t pose a risk to anyone and is one of the “safer” ones out there.
The different accessories is purely down to when they were installed and what was in stock at the wholesalers at the time, the MK and Loblite stuff is about on par with each other anyway. The junction boxes used are all from the Gewiss range, there will be less of these next year as I’ve bought those power spike sockets that you stake into the ground to make setting up the lights easier. The boxes which house the trailing sockets, transformers etc are mostly all the same but the odd one or two are different, again down to what was in stock at the time.
I assume you mean the yellow transformer in the shed, it’s just a regular power tool transformer that runs the handful of American light sets I have in the back garden.
Spark123,
If you think that Alan has a lot of lights this year then you should have seen the house last year lol. It was plastered with lights all around the side too and you couldn’t even see the floor of the drive. Most of the stuff was ropelight figures which are probably the most power hungry things you can buy lol! I convinced him to have some outdoor sockets installed for this year which he did, they are on their own 20amp circuit with a DP switch by the front door, the garden electrics were also moved onto their own circuit which was a spur from the ring main feeding 3 sheds with fridges, heaters, security lighting etc… so these probably contributed to the problems last year too.
Lorraine's lights take 2 days to put up and the same to take down. Mine takes 5 days to put up and the same to take down. Packing everything away varies depending on what needs to be allowed to dry out properly and how long it takes lol! Everything is usually away by the end of January though.
I’m not sure of the total loading of Alan’s house as I’ve never measured it; Lorraine’s measured at 13.2 amps this year and all of my lights totalled 22.2 amps. Lorraine’s are fed from a 20amp mcb in the main consumer unit which feeds the power board pictured; a timer then switches the supply on/off via a contactor. Mine are split into different sections, the front lights are switched by a simple digital plug-in timer and the sockets it’s plugged into are on their own 20amp circuit (pictured), the side lights are also switched by a plug-in timer and the back garden lights have two supplies switched by one timer with a pair of contactors. The power cabinet feeding the side and back lights is on its own 30amp circuit (again pictured).
The fish are just regular gold fish, picture below taken ages ago so they are much bigger now.
All the best
Dan
