fairy lights danger

[matz]

morning, we have a rental property let to a family and the house inside is festooned with fairty lights, literally 100s of them all round the picture rails, up and down door frames, covering the ceiling in the big hallway and around at least 3 trees. Maybe around 7 or 8 sets of lights. They are bing left on when house unattended. Looking for an opinion as to whether therse much danger with all this?

 

[securespark]

Are these light sets SELV, built to standard?

 

[matz]

short answer is I dont know. They would have been cheap

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

short answer is I dont know. They would have been cheap

If they are not made to an acceptable standard, then they are potentially dangerous and a fire risk. Does your tenant have building and contents insurance, in case he/she sets fire to your house? If not, then insist they are removed.

 

[Rodders53]

Opinion 1:
No probs mate

Opinion 2:
ANY electrical item can fail and cause a fire at any moment.
Fridges. Freezers. Tumble Dryers. All have caused house fires.
Old school TVs were another (valve days/crts especially). Less so now, but...
Immersion heaters can overheat a fused connection unit in use.
Phone chargers have been known to catch fire.

Modern LED Christmas light run a lot cooler than olden days incandescent lamps. Some have heavy old-school mains transformer supplies that get warm, others use switched-mode types which are far cooler running.

I'd expect if many house fires were caused by such lights the Insurers would have clauses prohibiting unattended use.

BUT the fire services recommend such lights are turned off and unplugged when out of the home or in bed. Ditto for phone chargers, of course.

Are you going to be Landlord Grinch? or Landlord Santa. The choice is yours.

 

[BlueLoo]

morning, we have a rental property let to a family and the house inside is festooned with fairty lights, literally 100s of them all round the picture rails, up and down door frames, covering the ceiling in the big hallway and around at least 3 trees. Maybe around 7 or 8 sets of lights. They are bing left on when house unattended. Looking for an opinion as to whether therse much danger with all this?

How do you know this?

 

[matz]

How do you know this?

sorry, not with you.... how do I know what?

 

[BlueLoo]

sorry, not with you.... how do I know what?

How do you know what is happening in the house?

 

[EFLImpudence]

They left the light on.

 

[BlueLoo]

They left the light on.

Sounds to me that the LL has been snooping around.

Which is illegal.

 

[matz]

Sounds to me that the LL has been snooping around.

Which is illegal.

nothing illegal in what I did, it was a prearranged inspection with enough notice given with tenants full agreement that I picked the key up from her sister as she couldnt be there. If its illegal for me to be there on my own I hold my hands up but I'm not aware that it is

 

[BlueLoo]

Don't come to my house. I must have married a Griswold.

 

[Jon c]

I wouldn't worry about it too much as long as they are LED, which they almost certainly will be, I doubt the tenants would want to pay the bill for leaving older incandescent sets running all the time! Even the dodgy LED sets online aren't so much a fire hazard rather an electric shock hazard. On a decent 'built to standards' set the main thing that could potentially go wrong and overheat/melt is the power supply, but a decent one will have protection. If there's nothing in the tenancy agreement forbidding fairy lights they aren't doing anything wrong. Worth noting though that student accommodation buildings normally ban all types of mains fairy lights, along with candles and basically any type of mains appliance other than a lamp or charger. Many I've seen don't even allow desk fans!

 

[JohnW2]

If they are not made to an acceptable standard, then they are potentially dangerous and a fire risk. Does your tenant have building and contents insurance, in case he/she sets fire to your house? If not, then insist they are removed.

Is there not some over-reaction going on here? Yes, anything which uses electricity will come with some degree of theoretical 'fire risk', and that becomes more of an issue if electricity is being used in a property house whilst it is unoccupied.

However, if the landlord were to 'insist that the fairy lights be removed', what about everything else electrical in the house? Unless you know more than I do, there is no reason to believe that the fairy lights represent a greater fire risk than does anything else that may be in the house, is there?

Kind Regards, John

 

[JohnW2]

Sounds to me that the LL has been snooping around. Which is illegal.

It's interesting how we vary. When there is a paucity of hard information,I tend to 'give the benefit of the doubt' unless/until information appears to the contrary ('innocent until proved guilty'). Others tend to do the opposite - assume ';guilt'unless/until 'innocence '; is proven

Kind Regards, John