tree lights,,arghhhhhh!!!!

mikeouk

is it just me or do christmas tree lights and out door lights drive anyone else crazy??? I seem to end up buying new ones each year and then throwing them out because im so frustrated with them. This year i bought some realy nice low voltage lights from tesco, they are red little round balls, got them on the tree and they looked great, then i realised when a bulb blows about 5 go out so its a case of taking each one out and trying a new one in until you find the defective one,they seemed to go regularly and in the end i just left them until today when i took them down,i got them all working again but ive no spare bulbs left and i havent a clue where to get spare bulbs from,so i know next christmas I might aswell just get a new set. Then theres the outside lights i bought from asda, theyre those ones that hang down like iceicles,again,If one bulb goes its not just the one line of lights that go out but about 2 or 3 of the "iceicles"ive got about 10 that dont work and Im tempted just to bin them.....Is this the idea???lights are disposable items???does anyone know of good quality lights that are easy to get bulbs for and only the bulb that fails goes out?

rosekitten

We used to be driven mad by lights
in the same way.Now we will only buy
Noma lights and regardless of what
anyone else says thats all we buy.
they dont flash,twinkle or play tunes
but they are straightforward,bright
and last year after year.No popping bulbs
and frustrating guess work,if the fuse bulb
goes easy to replace only ever done this twice
between five sets of lights in the past
eight years.Our oldest set is eight years old
and our newest set two years old,but they all
take the same size G1 bulbs.that are easy to
get hold of in gardens centres,stores etc.
when I think back to the sets we have
binned in the past a complete waste of
money and none of them cheap sets.

.

Lyndsay_21

i bought some cheap ones this year £4 form woolies and they came with spare bulbs so if they go next year i'm not bothered as they where so cheap.

sophiesmum_2

We bought some of the led "rice " lights, The lights are part of the wiring ie- there are no removable bulbs,and no fuse bulbs, they work on low voltage transformers and we have never have a problem with them. The only downside is that when they do go you have to replace the whole thing but no issues yet after several years. B and Q had them this year for about£10 a set.

LilMissEmmylou

dont dump them - freecycle them so somebody else can make use of the remaining working bulbs for spares for their lights

LJM

we bought led white lights this year and they were beautiful was so glad to get rid of my other 2 sets of lights they did drive me mad

party_of_five

We were in exactly the same position until we bought a couple of these 'light winder' things from lakeland a few years ago to avoid just dumping them in a crate willy nilly which I'm sure was causing most of the damage (well that and the fact that I quite often lost my temper trying to untangle them). They are basically a shaped bit of plastic that you wind the lights around so they don't get tangled or damaged. Since we've had those, we have no problems. They don't seem to have them on Lakeland any more as I guess it isn't the season but they were only about £5 for two and well worth the spend I thought. Sorry not a help for this year, but maybe for next?