The tradition of celebrating Halloween has been around for centuries. However, as the event becomes more popular in Australia, with all the creepy dressing up and spooky light decorations, one thing is for sure: nothing is scarier than electrical shorts, power outages and overloads.

This Halloween, make sure you are keeping fire and electrical safety on top of your mind as you go around tricking and treating this time around. 

Light Safety

Before you put on those spooky electrical lights make sure you have checked them closely for safety. 

Watch out for frayed wires or broken lights if you are reusing lights that you stored from last year. If you are buying new lights online, make sure they comply with the Australian electrical safety standards to save your Halloween fun turning into an actual nightmare.

Lights that are marked as indoors, must not be used for outdoor decorations, as they may not withstand weather conditions or objects they may come in contact with.

Flammable Decorations

Avoid setting up your light decorations in closed spaces such as jars or around easily flammable decorations made out of paper or plastic. 

Light bulbs powered by battery packs can easily heat up and set up such decorations on fire, posing a major safety hazard.

Battery operated candles

Nothing says Halloween better than those jack-o-lanterns with their ghoulish grin. But lighting them up with traditional candles can be unsafe. 

Pair this with children or pets around your Halloween decorations, and something nasty is bound to happen.

Battery operated flameless candles look just as good without the danger of anything catching fire or someone getting burned.

Use extension cords with care

If you must use extension cords to plug in your light decorations, make sure they can carry the load you intend to connect them with.

Discard extension cords if they are in bad shape, never nail through the cords, don’t attach them to metal objects and keep them away from high traffic zones.

Do not stretch extension cords over long distances such as across the hall or between rooms to avoid people and pets getting tripped over.

Power off

If the thought of getting an electrical shock gives you chills running down the spine, imagine leaving your light decorations unattended, only to find out later that the heat being emitted from the lights set your decorations ablaze, while you left it unattended. 

While it may sound exciting to keep your house looking haunted throughout the Halloween night, turning the power off before going to bed or leaving the house is a wise thing to do.

Wrapping up

The best Halloween celebrations need to be fun but safe at the same time. Keeping in mind some of the electrical safety rules while decorating your home and outdoors will keep the real scares away.

As licenced electricians in Geelong, we can help you with new powerpoint installations so you don’t have to run extension cords around the house this Halloween and can set up the lights to get that haunted house look that you want!

Call us today for an obligation free quote.