Sealing Plug Ends

[Terry Hurrle]

A lot of people have asked how to seal the ends of light strings to keep them from shorting or grounding out in moisture or snow. Here is how I do the female ends of the lights on my roof. The male ends are under the eve so they are pretty well protected. You can use this if they are on the ground etc. These are prescription bottles that I bought at Walmart. You can actually use the smaller bottles. You cut a small notch as seen it the top before putting the lid on set the wire in there and put on the lid. Paint them what ever color you need. Second picture on next post.
Terry

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[Terry Hurrle]

Second picture


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[Scott T]

This is another "best practice" that needs to be noted in a "Best Practice" category.


Dan,
Can you please create a "Best Practice" forum category so we can deposit items like this one. Once a hand full of people deem something a "best practice", you move it over.

I would title the thread "Sealing the last light string"

I have also hear people using the baby plug covers too.

[Surfing4Dough]

I am confused why this is necessary. In all my years of decorating, I have not had problems with using lights outdoors in rain or snow (except for when I tried to seal them from the water since it usually just traps water in--though probably not with this approach above). Rain and snow itself is not the problem since it is "clean" water which is not very conductive. It is when dirt and fertilizer (from the dirt) mixes with the water that it can then become conductive. Therefore keeping plugs out of puddled water on the ground is usually all that is needed. If I have to have a plug on the ground, I simply set it up on a 1" rock and that does the trick. If you think about it, none of your light sockets on your string are water-tight (either the bulb side, and definitely not the wire side on most lights). Therefore I don't see what the need is for "waterproofing" the plugs.

If anything most sealing techniques (though not the method mentioned above) traps more moisture in the connection, leading to more corrosion.

[Scott T]

Surfing4Dough wrote:

I am confused why this is necessary.  In all my years of decorating, I have not had problems with using lights outdoors in rain or snow (except for when I tried to seal them from the water since it usually just traps water in--though probably not with this approach above).  Rain and snow itself is not the problem since it is "clean" water which is not very conductive.  It is when dirt and fertilizer (from the dirt) mixes with the water that it can then become conductive.  Therefore keeping plugs out of puddled water on the ground is usually all that is needed.  If I have to have a plug on the ground, I simply set it up on a 1" rock and that does the trick.  If you think about it, none of your light sockets on your string are water-tight (either the bulb side, and definitely not the wire side on most lights).  Therefore I don't see what the need is for "waterproofing" the plugs. 

If anything most sealing techniques (though not the method mentioned above) traps more moisture in the connection, leading to more corrosion. 

Good point! I used to put baggy around my junction connections when I did did static displays. I once found a bag full of rain water and the lights were still on. Hmm

[Surfing4Dough]

Scott T wrote:

Good point! I used to put baggy around my junction connections when I did did static displays. I once found a bag full of rain water and the lights were still on. Hmm

When I first started doing lighting at my parent's house many years ago, I remember we tried putting electrical tape around connections, and then later switched to bags that were taped tightly, but still had more problems with those strings--either lots of string failures (either corrosion or excess bulb burn out) or GFCI problems. Once we stopped sealing connections, all problems stopped. Sometimes it is probably more that condensation forms inside the bag/sealed device (rather than rain) and that is nearly impossible to keep out, and once it is inside the sealed area it can't get out. I would even monitor the Rx bottles mentioned above to make sure they don't collect moisture from condensation (due to heating and cooling of day/night during the winter).

[dharker]

Well I have been taping and wrapping for years and always have had problems with at least one bank of 8 when a good rain comes. Reading all of the posts last year on this subject I see many of the people with the largest displays etc do not do anything but make sure the plug ends are slightly off the ground. So I decided I'll save the hours of electrical tape and do nothing this year- can't wait to see what happens and it would be great if my problems are gone.

P.S.- last year I narrowed my bank of 8 that was out to channel 1 which was a single washinton maple with nothing near the ground so i was doubting the puddle/dirt theory but I'm still going with the 'tape nothing' this year....

[Guest wbottomley]

I've never taped one connection in my 20+ years of decorating.

I will have a problem once in a blue moon but that's about it.

[Keith Adams]

Up until last year I always had problems with the fuses in my led strings blowing randomly at least 1 per rainstorm. Last year I used duct tape on all my femail ends. Just a slice over the 2 slits was enough. I didn't have 1 fuse pop all season long in rain, fog, or snow. I always use light stakes to keep my male to female plugs elevated off my yard.

[-klb-]

One more thing to watch out for.

I've found at least one kind of good name triple tap extension cord where the entire triple tap cord head was hollow. It left enough volume of water, and exposed copper, that I think enough copper or copper oxides dissolved in there to become a GFCI trip..

As a rule, both at home, and at the fire house, I have more issues with trips on the grounded supply side of the equation than I do with all the lights.

As for trees, I will say that tree trunks can be annoyingly conductive. I've had some GFCI trips from just tree trunks that were wrapped starting a few inches above the ground, but wrapped with 3 strings every 2 inches up until the canopy. I noticed that those did not trip so much in rain, but more in high humidity conditions when water is just condensing out of the air on everything... I think the real solution will be when we migrate those from mini lights where the bottom of each socket is completely open, to sealed LED.

[brownjm74]

I just use Hot Glue to seal the ends up. And if I need to change the configuration, the hot glue comes right out.

[Greg Young]

I, like William and others, have been decorating for a long time (34 years this season), and have never wrapped/sealed plug ends. In my case there was one exception, quite some time back.

I found there was water in plugs I sealed that yseason, when I took them apart at year's end, so that ended that practice!

Rarely do I get any issues, even after significant rain/snow.

One thing I do have to disagree slightly on - our current rain water is not contaminant free. You get positive TDS reads on it, from contaminants it picks up as it travels through the atmosphere.

It also no longer has a neutral pH. In many areas it is slightly acidic (aka "acid rain"), which is impacting growing certain varities of evergreens adversely (ie Scotch pine up my way).

Greg