Christmas is a time for great celebration with family and friends, tons of lights and decorations, plenty of food and drink – and, of course, lots of merriment and fun.

As such, it’s always worth making sure that your home heating and electrical appliances are installed safely and in good shape to help guarantee nothing puts a dampener on the festivities over the holidays.

Christmas decorations often add to the electrical appliance quota in the home, as many of them are powered by electricity, so there are several things you can do to ensure their safety.

According to Electrical Safety First, Christmas lights can be an electrical safety risk. One in twelve people confess to leaving their Christmas lights on overnight, potentially endangering their households as lights can overheat and create a fire hazard.

So it’s always a good idea to switch them off before bed. And always check for any broken lights, loose connections or damaged cords, as these too can be a fire risk.

Other Christmas home safety tips include:

  • Keeping your Christmas tree away from heat sources, particularly portable heaters
  • Don’t overload sockets and try to avoid the use of extension leads or adaptors
  • Never leave cooking unattended
  • Always charge mobile devices on a hard surface
  • Never use hairspray on a real Christmas tree to stop the needles falling off – again it’s a fire risk
  • Unplug those hair straighteners and put them away, so you know for definite you’ve not left them on
  • And – water a real Christmas tree regularly, as dry trees are more likely to catch light

If you do find you have an electrical or plumbing problem and need an emergency plumber or heating engineer over Christmas and New Year, don’t be tempted to try and fix things yourself, unless you know exactly what you’re doing.

Our professional electrical, heating and plumbing engineers, which cover the whole of Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire, can help whatever time of day or night it is.

The Paine Manwaring Christmas emergency plumber and emergency electrician numbers are 07793 580 253 (Emergency Electrical Engineer) | 07793 580 250 (Emergency Gas/Plumbing Engineer).

What a year it’s been for Paine Manwaring!

As the year comes to a close, we have been reflecting on some of the successes and highlights we saw in 2018. These included the following:

Have a very Merry Christmas!

Please note that some of our staff will be in the Paine Manwaring offices on the days between Christmas and New Year – but remember the emergency numbers are available throughout the holidays!

The whole team at Paine Manwaring would like to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, with our warmest thanks for your valued custom in 2018 and we look forward to working with you again in 2019.