Flying to Toronto to learn about Christmas Lights?

I am pretty sure that a quick trip to Canadian Tire would provide one with all sorts of educational opportunities. The back-side of the boxes of LED lights have all sorts of information on them.

My understanding is that the city’s Events Officer is scheduled to be in Toronto for a week on other business, but will take the opportunity to investigate Toronto’s switch to LED xmas lights. I would agree with the question though; what is there, really, to investigate?

I am willing to bet that someone with nothing better to do will complain about the new lights. Forearmed is always a good principle. I say, if he is going to be there anyway, he may as well find out what he can.

Why don’t they just come over to Fredericton if they want some advice on LED lighting. The city changed all of their Christmas lighting a few years back and even decided to keep some of the lighting on throughout the year.

They have also migrated most (if not all) of their traffic lights over to LED signals if they would like advice on that.

Freddy Beach certainly seems a lot closer than Toronto, but the person responsible is in Toronto anyway….

Maritime Electric (who could probably afford the electricity for the regular lights), and Province House have been using the LED lights for several years, so expertise is close at hand. I put a couple of strings up last Xmas, and calculated that it was actually cheaper to leave them on 24/7 than to run a timer to turn them on and off, so there are economies of scale factors to consider that Toronto may be able to help them with, but I am sure they could find out all they need to know from the lighting manufacturers or municipalities closer at hand. However, if as councillor Rob states, they are already going to be in Hogtown, it won’t hurt to talk to them.
I think the real savings would be in moving street and traffic lights over to LED and/or compact fluorescent technology, not in Xmas lighting.

The Prince County Hospital Foundation in Summerside hosts an outdoor Christmas lighting event each December called Lights for Life, which is similar in size and scope to what Charlottetown does. PCH experimented with LED lights a couple of winters ago but found they were not reliable enough, and many strands went back for replacement after minimal use. (The lights had a 5-year guarantee). Also, when one light bulb went out the whole strand went out, so for purposes of outdoor Christmas lighting with some lights being high and difficult to reach, it was a big problem. The hospital has since reverted to regular Christmas bulbs, not LED.

One-half of one of my two light strings (Noma brand from Cdn. Tire) experienced the same problem. I thought it was an isolated incident, but there are evidently reliability problems with LED light strings!

Here is an interesting discussion on LED Xmas light reliability and repair strategies.

I thought the way these things worked was an invitation for bids goes out and suitors line up just for the privilege of showing their wares to City Hall. Or the Mayor’s cousin is in the business and the contract goes straight to him. One or the other. Graft used to be so simple.