Dealing with ice and snow

[plasmadrive]

Hate to brag but sunny and 80 degrees here in beautiful Arizona. 

Yeah but in the summer.... you fry in July..

[Dave Pursel]

Ok!  I now have to chime in after reading some of these.  Those who live in AZ,CA and FL can ignore this response.  My gfci running the 16 minis has been tripping left and right the last 4 nights.  Normal when it rains, but not so when it's just snow.  4" or so the last few days.  Something it has never done for 6 years.  Probably for good reason I'm sure.  But I bypassed the gfci last night so hopefully no one will go out and find out if something is truely HOT - even though it's COLD (in the teens).  Use to love snow and ice until LightORama and the Che'vette came along.  Then I read the one from oilmoney. Where they live redefines COLDDDDD!!!!   His posted video of his CCR tree is awsome.  But after googling where ft mcmurray Alberta  is, I couldn't help if anyone else even lives there such that they can enjoy his lights.......   : )  By the way, since it can't be driven in the snow, here's what the Che'Vette pupose is for during the decorating season....  see attached.  This probably should have been a coffee shop forum topic....

[cjcruz]

Yeah but in the summer.... you fry in July..

It's a dry heat! 

[PaulXmas]

I live a few hours South of Fort McMoney and we get just as cold.

Extension cords are buried under 2 feet of snow no issues with GFI tripping.

We did have a problem a few years ago when it was above freezing and one GFI kept tripping.

I reconnected the controllers one at a time until I found the bad one then plug things in until I found out it was my net lights that were the problem.

Disconnected them and found a few bare wires that could have been deadly.

 

By passing a GFI because it is tripping is asking for trouble and possibly a law suit!

[kiplorenzo]

while I am putting up lights, any connection that gets buried in snow gets a ziplock baggie over it that is taped at the bottom...No Shorts and at the end of the year, I take them off.

[Frank Farmer]

I have two shows that I run. The main show from 6 till midnight and the the rest of the time I have a show called "keep-warm". It has all of my light elements on at about 10% or so, just enough for the lights to just be on. It creates enough heat that the snow and ice does not build up on the elements. The LED lights don't produce much heat, but I'm mostly using RGB nodes and they do.

It works pretty well for me here in Virginia, but we don't get temps below zero.

Just a suggestion...

[Klayfish]

It's not really the lights themselves that are the problem, it's the connections between extension cords and/or light strand ends.  Last night, with the help of my 9 year old son, we were outside smashing through the layer of ice on top of the snow.  My son had a blast, the ice is a solid 1/2" thick, so when we were breaking it apart we were pulling up pieces that were the size of a small coffee table top.  We unburied all the LOR controller connections and I now have my show back up and running....though sadly my parking area is still totally snow covered.  I live in a very rural area and there's no street parking on my roadway, not even a shoulder, so they have to come up the driveway and park on my lawn.  We started to work on isolating what elements that were attached to that same GFI was causing the issue.  We isolated it to one group of elements, but had to stop for the night.  So it's progress...plus it's supposed to be 45 degrees today, 50 tomorrow and 65 by Sunday, so everything will melt just in time for Christmas itself.  Perfect!

[SparkDr]

I have had exceptional results using a 1" diameter split polyethylene pipe insulation to cover my connections.  The 1" size allows the cord ends to plenty of room and it creates a nice little protected pocket.  Mine lay on the ground and have weathered assorted rain

since Thanksgiving and have been sitting under a snow load since Saturday with no problems at all.  They cut easily with a utility knife and cost less than 2 bucks for a 6' section at Lowe's.  http://www.lowes.com/pd_24434-1410-P12XB/6_0__?productId=3133247&Ntt=split+pipe+insulation&pl=1&currentURL=%3FNtt%3Dsplit%2Bpipe%2Binsulation&facetInfo=

[sticks4legs]

As another Canadian in Alberta I can chime in as well, but its my only my first year so some vets might correct me.  I gues-timated that I would have problems with melting snow on my mini trees.  400 mini lights can get warm so I put a tiny amount of dielectric grease on the prongs before plugging them in and put electrical tape around the connection.  No issues so far.  Add to that we had one of the worst freezing rain storms in along time last weekend and I have tripped a GFI or anything yet.

[Klayfish]

Some great ideas in this thread.  Pipe insulation.  Dielectric grease.  I'd have never thought of those.  Once this season is over, I need to take my lights down quickly.  Probably going to start around Dec 28th or 29th, because I'm slated for hip surgery in mid-January.  So I need everything down.  But as I'm recovering, I'll be at home doing the design for 2014.  Definitely plan to spend more time weatherproofing my display.

[habmann]

I like the pipe insulation idea, going to have to keep that in mind for next year. I had some GFCI problems the other day when the ice from the freezing rain storm started melting. Next day when temps dropped down below zero again all was good.

[PaulXmas]

Carefull "weatherproofing" you may trap water in there and cause even more problems.