Christmas lights on your tree combined with festooning your home’s exterior with festive delights could hike your energy bill up to £508.01 for just one month.
How long one’s lights are on for, how many bulbs they have, and the amount of days they have your lights on for will substantially affect the energy cost overall.
By having a rough idea of how much Christmas decorations costs to run, Britons can make informed decisions before switching on all the lights so people can stick within their budget and know what figures to expect in your utility bills.
According to Ofgem, the average consumption for a household of between 2-3 people uses 2,700 kWh of electricity and 11,500 kWh of gas.
This works out to an average annual costs of £1,834 and a montly cost of £152.83 – so anything extra could cause the bill to boost.
Add onto that the cost of running your Christmas tree’s lights for six hours a day throughout the month of December (£4.01) and consumers might not think the difference so great.
However, attaching just six more decorative items to your home’s exterior and running those for six hours a day throughout December can add hundreds.
Running an LED rope light, LED tinsel light, LED snowflake light, inflatable Father Christmas, light-up snowman and fairy lights on the outside of your house will do more than spread festive cheer, UK Debt Expert calculates.
In fact, it’ll add £351.17 to the monthly bill, bringing your total energy costs up to £508.01.
How much electricity do Christmas lights use?
According to Ideal Home, the average family has their Christmas lights on for six hours per day.
On average a 100-count string of incandescent mini lights runs at 40 watts, and with most people using two strings, that adds up to 80 watts (W) or 0.08 kilowatts (kW).
If the lights were left on for six hours a day, with the electricity unit price now at 28p per kWh from October, that means the daily cost to run Christmas lights would be 14p per day.
This means that for a month, it would cost £4.01 to run Christmas lights for six hours per day. This is based on the equation 0.48 (output over six hours per day) x 0.28 (cost) x 30 (days).
To cut the costs, Britons could opt for solar and battery-powered Christmas lights that don’t rely on being plugged into an electricity source to work.
The UK Debt Expert’s Christmas Lights Calculator tool for 2023 shows that if people use these certain Christmas decorations and leave them on for six hours a day during December, they could add over £350 to their montly bill:
- Rope Light (eg. LED Merry Christmas Rope Light)
- Tinsel Light (eg. LED Christmas Tree Tinsel Light)
- Motif (eg. LED snowflake light)
- Inflatable (eg. inflatable Santa)
- Freestanding items (eg. light-up snowman)
- Fairy lights
The total estimated cost comes to £351.17.
With all these costs added together, a typical household could see their monthly bill rise to around £508.31.
The UK Debt Expert’s research found that if people expect two more weeks until 15 December to put up their lights, rather than on December 1, they could save almost £700 in energy costs, and still run them until January 5.
This figure is based on homes that are lit up and glowing with all 16 types of lights analysed, including a Santa and Tree Archway, an LED santa train light and a shooting star rope light.
Many families and homeowners may pick to go for a more subtle combination of fairy lights and an inflatable snowman can still expect to save £40 in costs if they expect two weeks – on the provision that their items are plugged in and turned on for six hours a day.
Britons who love to decorate the outside of their houses with silhouettes of Christmas characters using rope lights could rack up the biggest bills of over £500 if they leave them up for over a month, based on current energy costs.
The most expensive light to run was a multi LED Santa and Tree archway, at 81p per hour, followed by an LED toyland arch rope light, for people wanting to make their house look appreciate Santa’s Workshop. The cheapest lights to run were indoor fairy lights, at an estimated cost of 12p per day.
