As Christmas approaches, people want to decorate their homes with electric garlands and decorations, but many are hesitant about how such decorations can increase their electricity bills. Experts say it is difficult to say unequivocally how much electricity Christmas decorations will consume, as it depends on both their parameters and the time of use."Electric garlands have many parameters that can determine the electricity consumption of such decorations: the length of the garland, the number of bulbs in the garland, the type of bulbs and the wattage. The amount, type and wattage of the bulbs in the garland are the most important factors in determining the electricity consumption, so it is worth paying attention to this when choosing the most economical garlands. Each garland package will indicate the total wattage of the garland, measured in watts (W), and the type of bulb - LED or incandescent - it contains. It's not just the garlands themselves that matter, but also how many garlands you hang, how long you keep them on, whether for a few hours or overnight, as this also increases the cost of electricity," comments Mantas Kavaliauskas, Product Development Manager at Elektrum Lietuva, an energy solutions company.

100 pounds per month for lighting the whole property

Emma  and John  decorate their homestead , with not a few, but several hundred electric decorations every year. People from neighbouring and distant towns also come to see the spectacle, and the homestead has already earned the title of Christmas home."We decorate the farmhouse for ourselves, but other people like it too, and we like it when people come, see it and enjoy it. Every year we try to come up with something new, for example, this year we will put up more old men, Santas and reindeer. We have other decorations too - trees, pyramids. We are counting all the decorations in hundreds - we have counted about 500 electrical plugs, and this is not the final number, because we have not had time to prepare everything yet," says Emma.When asked whether she pays attention to the power and possible electricity consumption when choosing new garlands, she says that she prefers their strength and durability."The main investment is in garlands because they need to be renewed from time to time - when they burn out or get old. All the garlands use LED bulbs, which require very little electricity, not like the popular incandescent bulbs of the past. We calculated that last year we paid about a hundred pounds more for electricity in December, when the farmhouse was decorated, than in the other months of the cold season," she says.According to an expert at "PanelSolar", when preparing to decorate your home for Christmas, you can calculate in advance how much electricity will cost and decide how much and which ones to use."Add up the power of all the electrical decorations you plan to use and divide by 1000. This will give you an estimate of how many hours all the decorations will consume one kilowatt hour (kWh) of electricity. Let's say all your decorations have a total power of 50 W, then they will all use 1 kWh in 20 hours. If the decorations run for about 4 hours a day and 120 hours a month, the total amount of electricity they will consume during this period will be about 6 kWh, for which you will pay just over £1 at current prices", he explains.

Advises switching off at night

When choosing electric garlands and decorations, John advises to make sure they have LED bulbs. They are more economical and efficient than incandescent bulbs, and can last up to 30,000 hours with the same amount of electricity."At the moment, LED festoons are the most common type of festoons sold in the shops, but many people still have and use filament festoons from the old days. It is worth replacing them with new LED bulbs as they are safer, longer lasting and use much less electricity. An LED garland with similar parameters consumes about 80% less electricity than an incandescent garland," John comments.It's also worth thinking about how long you will keep your electrical decorations on. Indoor decorations are switched off when everyone goes to bed, but outdoor decorations are often left on all night long, using electricity even though they may not be necessary. Many indoor garlands have timers that can be set to select how long it takes for the garland to switch off. The same applies to outdoor decorations that have timers, or, if none are available, individual sensors can be used that react to daylight: they switch the garland on at dusk and off after a set time.Emma says that she usually keeps the decorations up throughout the Advent period, from the first days of December until the  on 6 January."Normally, we leave the decorations on all night only on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year's Eve. We also have a few inflatable decorations, so we don't switch them off, but we keep other garlands and decorations on from around 5pm to 11pm. Sometimes we have people arrive earlier, just after dark, and then we turn on the decorations earlier. But we don't keep them on all night, because it's not economical and it doesn't make sense, nobody sees them anyway," she says.