Christmas Lights Not Working? What to Check First

You plug the lights in and nothing happens. Or half the roofline comes on and the other half stays dark. Usually the cause is simple. Here is what to check, in a sensible order, and where it stops being a job for a ladder and a spare fuse.

Start at the outlet, not the lights

When Christmas lights are not working, people tend to go straight to the bulbs. Start at the other end. The power source fails more often than the strand does.

• Check the GFCI outlet. Outdoor outlets, and many garage outlets, are GFCI protected. They trip when they sense moisture or a fault. Look for a small reset button on the outlet itself, or on another outlet on the same circuit, often in the garage or a bathroom. Press reset firmly.
• Check the breaker panel. If the GFCI will not reset, or there is no GFCI, look for a tripped breaker. A tripped breaker sits in the middle position, not fully on.
• Check the timer. Plug timers get bumped, lose their settings after a power cut, or were set to the wrong time of day. Take the timer out of the chain and plug the lights in directly. If they come on, the timer is your problem.
• Check the extension cord. Swap in a cord you know works. Outdoor cords get crushed by garage doors and chewed at the plug end.

If the outlet keeps tripping

A GFCI that trips once after a storm is normal. A GFCI that trips every time it rains, or trips again the moment you reset it, is telling you something. Almost always it is water getting into a connection.

Walk the run and look at every point where two plugs meet. Connections lying on the ground, sitting in a gutter, or hanging where roof runoff drips onto them are the usual suspects. Lift them off the ground, point the open ends downward so water runs off instead of in, and keep them out of standing water. A connection sitting in a wet gutter through a Tennessee winter will keep tripping the outlet until it is moved.

Do not replace a GFCI outlet with a standard one to stop the tripping. The trip is the safety feature doing its job. If the outlet trips with nothing plugged into it at all, that is a wiring problem for an electrician, not a lighting problem.

Too much on one circuit

If the breaker trips a few minutes after everything comes on, you may simply have too much plugged into one circuit. This is more common with older incandescent strands, which draw far more power than LEDs. Check the strand packaging for how many sets can be connected end to end, and do not go past it. Spreading the load across two outlets on different circuits often fixes it.

Half the strand is dark

This is the classic problem with incandescent mini lights. Those strands are wired in sections. One loose, broken or missing bulb can break the circuit for its whole section, so a third or half of the strand goes out while the rest stays lit.

How to find the bad bulb

• Start at the first dark bulb next to a working section and work outward.
• Push each bulb firmly into its socket. Many “dead” sections are just a bulb that worked loose in the wind.
• Look for bulbs that are cracked, blackened or missing their filament, and replace them with the spare bulbs that came in the box. Match the voltage printed on the spare.
• Check for a bulb with a bent wire lead that is not making contact in the socket.

A light tester from a hardware store speeds this up. On a cheap strand with several dead sections, it is often not worth your evening. Replace the strand.

The whole strand is dark, but the outlet works

Many incandescent strands have small fuses in the male plug. Slide open the little door on the plug and you will see them. If a fuse is dark or the thin wire inside is broken, replace it with the spare usually taped to the cord or packed in the box. If the new fuse blows straight away, there is a short in the strand. Throw that strand out.

Also check the wire itself. Look along the full length for cuts, crushed spots, chewed insulation or melted sections. Squirrels chew wire. So do lawn mowers and ladder feet. Any damaged strand should be retired, not taped up and put back on the house.

LED strands behave differently

LED strands do not always follow the same rules. Many are not designed for bulb by bulb repair, and on many sets the diodes are sealed in and cannot be swapped. If an LED strand has a dead section and the plug, fuse and connections all check out, replacement is usually the practical answer.

Flickering LEDs are often a loose connection between strands or a timer or dimmer that is not suited to LED loads. Try the strand plugged straight into the outlet before you blame the lights.

Lights that worked last year and not this year

Strands stuffed in a bin or left in a hot attic all summer come out with kinked wires and loose sockets. Before you climb a ladder, plug every strand in on the ground and confirm it works. Finding a dead strand on the driveway takes a minute. Finding it after it is clipped to the gutter takes an afternoon.

When DIY troubleshooting is fine, and when it is not

Most of what is above is safe and reasonable for a homeowner to do. Resetting outlets, checking fuses, pushing in bulbs and swapping a strand are all fine jobs.

Stop and call someone when:

• An outlet trips with nothing connected to it.
• You smell burning, see scorch marks, or feel a plug or cord that is hot to the touch.
• The fault is on a steep or second story roofline and you are not comfortable on a ladder there, especially on wet or icy shingles.
• You have chased the same problem for several evenings and still cannot find it.

The first two are for an electrician. The ladder one is simply common sense. A wet roof in December is no place to test a strand.

How it works when Red Nose Lites installs your lights

If you would rather not do any of this, that is the service we provide. Red Nose Lites has been installing Christmas lights around Nashville since 2006. Every install includes design, custom cut commercial grade LED strands, installation by insured crews, in season maintenance, takedown after the holidays, and off season storage. We store the lights, so there is no bin of tangled strands in your attic next year.

We attach everything with clips sized to your roof edge or gutter lip. No staples, nails or screws go into your fascia, trim or shingles. If something stops working during the season, our 24 hour service guarantee covers it, and you do not climb the ladder. There are no contracts and no long term commitments.

You can see the full process on our how it works page, or read more about residential installation. Businesses can look at our commercial installation service.

Getting a price

We quote over the phone. Call (615) 595-9686, describe your home and what you want lit, and we can give you a price on that call. If you would like someone to come out, or the property is large or unusual, a site visit is available, but it is your choice, not a requirement. You can also use the quote form.

We work across Nashville, Brentwood, Franklin, Hendersonville and the surrounding neighborhoods.