Essential Electrical Winter Safety Tips for Oklahoma Homeowners

Oklahoma winters bring three reliable electrical risks: ice storms that take down lines, space heaters that overload circuits, and the holiday-light habits we all keep forgetting are dangerous. Here's how to handle all three.

Space heaters and circuit overload

A 1500-watt space heater pulls about 12.5 amps. A standard household circuit is 15 or 20 amps. Plug a heater in next to a TV, a lamp, and a phone charger and you're at the limit. Close enough that the breaker may not trip but the wiring still runs hot.

• Plug space heaters directly into a wall outlet, never into a power strip or extension cord.
• Don't run two space heaters on the same circuit.
• If the breaker for the room trips when you turn on the heater, the circuit is too loaded. Stop and reassess.
• Unplug heaters when you leave the room or go to sleep.

Holiday lights: the underrated risk

Holiday lights are responsible for hundreds of house fires every year. Almost all are preventable:

• Replace any string with frayed insulation, broken bulbs, or a discolored plug. Don't repair them.
• Don't connect more strings end-to-end than the manufacturer rates the string for. Old incandescent strings often max at 3 connections; LED strings allow more.
• Outdoor lights need to be rated for outdoor use. Indoor strings strung outside are a fire hazard.
• Plug outdoor lights into GFCI-protected outlets (required by code on all exterior outlets).
• Unplug all decorative lighting overnight and when you leave home.

Ice storms and outages

Oklahoma ice storms drop lines reliably. When power's out:

• If you see a downed power line, stay away. Assume it's energized. Call OG&E and 911.
• Don't run a portable generator inside a house, garage, or covered porch. Carbon monoxide kills.
• Don't backfeed your home through an outlet. It can electrocute a line worker on the other end of the wire.
• If you have a portable generator, run it outside, at least 20 feet from the house, with extension cords running through windows or doors.
• If you have a standby generator, leave it to do its job. It's designed for exactly this.

Smoke and CO detector check

Winter is the highest fire-risk season: heating equipment, holiday lights, candles, and increased power use all stack up. Take 10 minutes:

• Test every smoke detector. The button on the front, all of them.
• Test every CO detector, especially if you have gas appliances or an attached garage.
• If any detector is more than 10 years old, replace it. They expire.

Outage kit basics

• Flashlights and batteries (not candles; fire risk).
• Phone chargers: battery-powered or car-powered.
• Bottled water (well pumps don't run in an outage).
• Pre-loaded weather radio if you live in tornado-prone areas.

If something feels wrong, call

Burning smells, hot outlets, breakers tripping repeatedly, dim lights. Call (405) 436-4776. We answer 24/7.