It Costs $82,000 to Light the One Million Christmas Lights at this House

[The Straight Story]

It Costs $82,000 to Light the One Million Christmas Lights at this House

The Faucher Family in Delaware have built extravagant Christmas lights setups for 25 years now. How extravagant? They use 1,000,000 lights. So how much does it cost them to run the lights for a month? $82,320. Gulp.

HouseLogic estimated the total cost by using the average price per kWh in the Faucher Family's region and assumed each of their 1,000,000 bulbs were the average 5 watt C7 bulb. They then figured the lights to run for 4 hours each night and 30 nights in total. The estimated cost came out to be $686/hour and $82,320 for those bright 30 nights. A lot of money to get in the Christmas spirit!

If the Fauchers use LEDS, their estimate would drop down to $89 hour and $10,680. For their sake, let's hope they do. Check out other extravagant Christmas lights costs at HouseLogic.



http://gizmodo.com/5712244/it-costs-82000-to-light-the-one-million-christmas-lights-at-this-house

[mdmc]

1. thats like one .01%'ers tax cut .. a bargin!

[L0oniX]

28. [phone]

[NoPasaran]

2. It looks beautiful

Although I wouldn't necessarily want to live on the other side of the moat.

[Donnachaidh]

3. how many poor familes could this ego escapade feed for that amount?

It's pretty -- but the way the economy is now -- it's an obscenity that points out the wealth disparity even more.

[tomm2thumbs]

4. there's a bulb out on the roof - I hope they figured that into the estimate /nt

[Webster Green]

5. Wouldn't medication to treat the illness be much cheaper? (n/t)

[a la izquierda]

6. Wow, tacky for a variety of reasons.

[liberal N proud]

7. If that home owner was truly in the Christmas spirit...

He would have used most or all of the $82K to help those in need.
How many families would that feed? How many homes would that heat? How many children could that provide a Christmas morning for?

Plus, I sure would hate to live in that guys neighborhood.

[Statistical]

22. Maybe he/she did donate $80K to charities. The power cost is nowhere near $80K.

So if the reality is they spend $5K on lights and $100K in donations to charities would that make them "ok"?

[dixiegrrrrl]

27. We have a house like that, around the corner from us.

Plus they shot off fireworks each Christmas Eve.
Heavy traffic at night, blazing lights, and all the neighborhood dogs barking at the explosions and the traffic.
Very memorable Christmas Eves.
For whatever reason, these folks no longer do the lights and fireworks last few years.

Very nice neighbors, btw, we all like them.

[one_voice]

8. I know this house...

I only live a few minutes from it. When my kids were little we used to go and see it every year. There are always cars stopped on both sides of the road to see this house.

They have their own street name..Santa Clause Way..they used to have a donations box at the end of the driveway. The oweners also used to dress up like Mr. and Mrs. Clause. Don't know if either are still true.

It was always very lit up, but the owners did add over the years. I don't think they could put anything else on this house/lawn.

It's pretty cool to see in person, but I think that money could be better spent. But it's not my money to spend so...

[one_voice]

21. oops...

it's Santa Clause Lane not Way.

[Kalyke]

24. Why is "Clause" misspelled?

Santa's name is spelled, "Claus" or even "Klaus."

The way you've said it was spelled is a legal term.

[one_voice]

29. Cuz I made a mistake...

thanks.

[PeaceNikki]

9. lol - smells like bullshit. Comments from Gizmodo

did the math and here's the result

(Fox News + misrepresentation of facts) x TMZ = Gizmodo

Let's just assume they are all typical mini-lights. A 100 bulbs string is 37 watts, so...
1,000,000 / 100 = 10,000
10,000 x 37 = 370,000 or 370 kW
370 x .14 = $51.80/ hr
$51.80 x 4 = $207.20 / night
$207.20 x 30 = $6216.00
Still a ridiculous amount of money IMHO but no where near $82,0000.
[/div

[SidDithers]

12. Bad calcuations all around. They used the estimate that each bulb was a 5 watt bulb.

So that's 5000 kW, not 370.

I don't know anyone who uses C7 lights anymore.

Here's my calc if they were LED mini lights @ 8 watt / 100 lights

1,000,000 lights would use 80 kW
80 x .14 = $11.20 / hr
= 44.80 / night
= $1,344 for the season.

Sid

[tele_mark]

10. This one uses lots of electricity too

I'm sure he's paying carbon credits, so it's OK.

[HughBeaumont]

13. Wowz. An Al Gore dig. Thatz awesums, funnee an orijinul!

Almost as funny as voting for an incompetent, dry-drunk, Laissez-Fail warmonger asshole for two terms instead and then coming to a Democratic board and making jokes.

Don't tell me, your next statement would be "I'M not a Republican, I'm an (Independent/Libertatian)!"

[Pisces]

18. LOL!! Pitch perfect comment.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

15. IBTT

[Kalyke]

26. And, uh, that's his family's farm.

That's not the house that the right-wing rails on. You know the house Al Gore uses as both a home and a business. I wonder how much a small business person runs up in a month when one combines both their personal home and their business's operating energy costs?

:eyes:

[JVS]

11. Is the electric work of a house capable of drawing that much current?

[MindPilot]

19. Doubtful.

Even at Sid's most conservative estimate of 80kw, that's 80000/120 or roughly 650 amps. The service panel in a newer large home would probably be 300 amps.

I think in most of these stories, the actual count of the bulbs is wildly exaggerated.

Edited to fix arithmetic

[SocialistLez]

14. Think of the food or medical care that could provide.

Simply disgusting.

[Cal Carpenter]

16. And meanwhile a half-dozen old people will probably die in Detroit for lack of heat

in their homes this winter.

Merry fucking Christmas.

[Bluerthanblue]

17. this just makes me sad.

this isn't something I love about America.

[onethatcares]

20. I remember that part of the bible where Jesus said

"go forward and light the world". I'm not sure he meant this.



But what do I know?

[Kalyke]

23. Wasteful MotherFauchers!

[FrancisTreptoe]

25. Christmas lights are a tradition that needs to be broken. Just a stupid idea.