pyromill Posted December 5, 2010 Share Posted December 5, 2010 Well I'm just curious as I suffer from some cracked ribs... Anyone else out there not have a single light out there for Christmas yet? Feel so bad not having my lights out but... with the weather and constant pain just have not felt good enough to put any out... its killing me thinking of everyone including my very soon to be wife not able to see even one light.. and was curious as to how many others might be "skipping" this year Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-klb- Posted December 5, 2010 Share Posted December 5, 2010 Let me start by saying that I hope you are feeing better soon, and that a year off helps you find better motivation and spirits for next year.I still don't have a single light up at the house, but we just went live with the 133,000 light show at the fire station. It is kind of interesting that the guy who got the whole thing started 4 years ago had what I believe was a 16 channel show in 2006 on his house, and with us working together on the city show in '07, '08, & '09 never did get his house set up with all he put into the show each year. I always wound up putting up my show late, but I did get it up each year.This year, I find myself sitting on the tipping point between setting it all up, or leaving the yard bare.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kzaas Posted December 5, 2010 Share Posted December 5, 2010 -klb- wrote: 133,000 light show at the fire station. :shock: How do the city folk feel about there taxes paying that electric bill?Pyromill, I know how you feel. In 2008 we were moving into this house in mid November which left no time for setting up my lights. I did end up and going down to Walmart and buying a couple of boxes of icicles just to have some lights up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-klb- Posted December 5, 2010 Share Posted December 5, 2010 kzaas wrote:-klb- wrote: 133,000 light show at the fire station. :shock: How do the city folk feel about there taxes paying that electric bill?Ah, the joy of animation, and nearly everything in at least 3, if not 4 colors. We often have a surprisingly small fraction of the lights on at once. The park side of things, which usually has far more lights, had a dedicated 400A service installed in 2008. If I read the meter correctly in 2008 and multiplied by the correct 40x as listed on the meter base, I still came back with an estimated $128 electric use charge.Now we are spending far more than that converting to LED lights, so we don't have to keep rebuilding things as the bulbs fade to white, or as they start getting too many failures to chase. Oh, and I expect our electric bill will go down... But even if it is a 90% reduction, it only pays for a few strands of lights....As I understand it, the city has received one complaint about electric use, and a few complaints about why is money being spent on a show like this. But the positive feedback from the residents way outweighs any of the criticism so far. Maybe it helps that our city is in the unusual position of not having had to work too hard to stay in the black through the last few years, even though many of neighboring cities have > $1M deficits. Maybe it also helps that the only cost that comes out of the general fund is the electricity. Everything else comes out of special tax funds that can not be used to reduce general fund expenditures...This year, I expect we will get a lot of complaints about inadequate parking, as the show has become so popular... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kzaas Posted December 5, 2010 Share Posted December 5, 2010 -klb- wrote: kzaas wrote:-klb- wrote: 133,000 light show at the fire station. :shock: How do the city folk feel about there taxes paying that electric bill?Ah, the joy of animation, and nearly everything in at least 3, if not 4 colors. We often have a surprisingly small fraction of the lights on at once. The park side of things, which usually has far more lights, had a dedicated 400A service installed in 2008. If I read the meter correctly in 2008 and multiplied by the correct 40x as listed on the meter base, I still came back with an estimated $128 electric use charge.Now we are spending far more than that converting to LED lights, so we don't have to keep rebuilding things as the bulbs fade to white, or as they start getting too many failures to chase. Oh, and I expect our electric bill will go down... But even if it is a 90% reduction, it only pays for a few strands of lights....As I understand it, the city has received one complaint about electric use, and a few complaints about why is money being spent on a show like this. But the positive feedback from the residents way outweighs any of the criticism so far. Maybe it helps that our city is in the unusual position of not having had to work too hard to stay in the black through the last few years, even though many of neighboring cities have > $1M deficits. Maybe it also helps that the only cost that comes out of the general fund is the electricity. Everything else comes out of special tax funds that can not be used to reduce general fund expenditures...This year, I expect we will get a lot of complaints about inadequate parking, as the show has become so popular...Well I hope you don't get too many more complaints as these shows put smiles on so many faces. I have thought about talking to our Mayor about doing a small portion of our city where people gather for our city Christmas tree lighting ceremony.P.S. Sorry for hijacking your thread Pyro, Please let it get back on track now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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