It costs $82,000 to light the christmas tree lights at one house in Delaware in December!

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.

Gizmoto

I'm sorry I love Christmas, the lights, the trees, presents, etc. but this is truly the biggest waist of energy & money I think I've ever seen. Especially when we are supposedly in an energy crisis for the future, I wonder if a big bonfire would give the same effect?
This is why other countries hate us so much, flagrant abuse of. . .

i guess the griswolds got beat lol

I'd be buying a commercial diesel generator and save myself $60,000

I too love Christmas and lights but can you imagine how many poor people he could feed with that money? He could have bought coats and gloves for the needy or helped people with heating bills or... My god that is just insane!

reply to post by Night Star


But that would make too much sense, be selfless and in the true spirit of christmas.

So un-american to actually want to help others when recognition isn't given.

reply to post by Donahue


Express yo self
We have a guy localy who lights up the gully and pond beside his house.
Looks like a million bucks...(really)
People with their kids come from miles around and sometimes figure skaters put on mini shows for fun...

He does it because it awes people right into the spirit of the season maybe more so and to a wider audience than any church sermon ever could.

takes more than bread alone....

Trying to out do everyone else - and they just look ignorant! So many worth while causes this money could have went to. How could people do this knowing people are cold, hungry and sick.

Bear in mind that this is someone else's idea of an estimate and is full of assumptions. The house depicted is a very modest house. I doubt it is as much as 2500 square feet. I find it very dubious that someone who lives in a house like that could come anywhere near affording such an expense. Something is way out of whack here.

reply to post by Danbones


I agree on the sermon part and I do take my daughter to look at the houses with lights.
But I can think of a better way to demonstrate my appreciation for the holidays then this.
Think of what you can pull off with $82,000, you can throw a christmas extravaganza in your town with food, rides, musicians, games, etc. for everyone, instead of being that guy with all those lights.

reply to post by schuyler

In order to determine a more accurate figure, we went back to the Christmas Light Source calculator with a bit of our own data. Using the Department of Energy's latest average cost-per-kilowatt-hour for the state of Delaware ($0.1402), the cost for one million C7 bulbs came to $701 per hour, even higher than House Logic's number ($686). When the one million was applied instead to mini lights, the number dropped to $63.09 per hour. A substantial sum, no doubt, but still just 9 percent of the earlier estimate and cheaper even than C7-equivalent LEDs. Given four hours of use per day, the total cost for the month of a million lights? $7,570.80. Now, to be fair, it's unlikely that all the lights are mini-bulbs, so we computed what it would cost to light the house if half the bulbs were C7-size and half minis: $45,844.80. Undoubtedly a pricey taste of holiday cheer, but still an unrealistic scenario in itself and, even still, a far cry from $82K.

Curbed

It seems these people own a website called 'home trend design' which now leads me to believe this is a publicity stunt for generating an audience to this site.

What were you saying about Christmas spirit?

More like NOELectricty left for everyone else.

reply to post by AnteBellum


That would be par for the course
The spirit of the season to many is one whiskey one boubon one scotch and one beer...
sounds llike a corporate tax right off
a publicity stunt

but every job it creates for a peep is
christmass for little tiny tim.

it takes alot to stay in business these days.

reply to post by AnteBellum


And I thought a $5K power bill for a hot month in California's desert heat--just to keep inside temps in the 90s and the pools pumping--was outrageous.

American at its not TOO FINEST

To this stunt, I say bah humbug

reply to post by AnteBellum


Thats one of the nicest sheep houses i've seen..hate to live there when tshtf..clueless consumer looking to one up their neighbors..pathetic.

reply to post by Danbones


I do get it business is not easy these days and it is only getting harder.

I'm starting a new company in March and this gave me a great idea!
I am going to have myself crucified on Good Friday and send the video feed with all proceeds to my new website, this should give my business a really good send off.

reply to post by AnteBellum


Thanks for posting that.

I used to work in a garden center and we sold Christmas lights.
No way are all of those C-7s!!!!!

I cannot imagine paying that month for my electricity for a year,let alone a month....whatever the REAL figure is.
And, sure, he could have LEDs, but for a millin lights, it would cost more than you could imagine...they are still quite pricey.

And, while I think his Christmas spirit is glowing, his electrical usage is insane......

Hollywood does it better! LOL!!

This is what I would do.

reply to post by Alxandro


That's great!

2nd