Introduction
The winter holiday season is traditionally a festive and eventful time of year. Celebrations, family gatherings and visits from houseguests traditionally increase in number during the winter holiday season. Statistics show that incidents of residential fires and electrical accidents typically increase during the winter holiday season, due in part to the increased electricity consumption resulting from decorations and entertaining. It is critical that families remember to keep safety in mind while enjoying this exciting, festive and extremely busy time of year.
The Electrical Safety Foundation International (ESFI) is the premier 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated exclusively to promoting electrical safety at home and in the workplace. Each winter, ESFI engages in a national holiday safety campaign to increase awareness of the safety concerns specific to holiday activities and encourage families and communities throughout the country to Make Safety a Tradition of the holiday season. This year’s campaign specifically addresses the safety concerns surrounding holiday decorating and entertaining, and provides consumers with tools to help them keep family, friends and guests safe during all of their holiday activities.
New and relevant statistics are an important asset for demonstrating the need for safety messages and programs. ESFI developed a new consumer survey instrument for 2013. This survey was distributed to a cross-section of U.S. population demographics, whose responses were then collectively analyzed. The purpose of this survey was to provide additional insight into holiday-related consumer behaviors. The trends and data garnered from this survey tool will be used to help draw consumer and media attention to the unique safety hazards posed by holiday activities.
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ESFI 2013 Holiday Safety Survey Results Infographic
The ESFI 2013 Holiday Survey was designed to gather attitudinal and behavioral information related to winter holiday activities. Survey topics and questions for the 2013 survey focused primarily on the safety concerns associated with holiday entertaining.
These new and relevant statistics, gathered from a statistically significant cross-section of the U.S. population, are valuable tools for demonstrating the importance of a proactive approach to safety during the holiday season. The trends and data garnered from this survey tool will be used to help draw consumer and media attention to the unique safety hazards posed by holiday activities.
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Survey Design and Sample
The 2013 Holiday Survey was designed to obtain a significant amount of attitudinal and behavioral
information from a sample that was reflective of the general population of the United States, and to do
so in as non-burdensome a manner as possible for those taking the survey. The questionnaire consisted of 55 questions related to holiday safety attitudes and practices. Some of those questions were presented conditionally, based on the answers given to questions asked earlier in the survey, so most respondents did not see all 55 questions. Most of the core survey questions were answered with
yes/no, multiple selection or scale responses. Additionally, respondents were presented with several
demographic questions, largely focused on family and household characteristics.
We purchased survey sample from a respected third party supplier of online survey panels. Because
the survey was conducted online, which by definition involves self-selection, this was not a purely
random sample. Rather we collected key demographic information and established a quota for
respondents whose households included children under the age of 5. We did this in order to reflect the
general population of the United States for the purposes of this study. The final count of responses was 880 completed surveys, of which 122 were from those who had children under the age of 5 living in their homes. A sample of 880 from a population of approximately 240 million adults in the U.S.
results in a 95 percent confidence level with a ± 3.3 percent sampling margin of error.
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Survey Topics and Key Findings
- Fire Safety
- Holiday Decorating Safety
- Cooking Safety
- Child Safety
The ESFI 2013 Holiday Survey was designed to gather attitudinal and behavioral information related to winter holiday activities. Survey topics and questions for the 2013 survey focused primarily on the safety concerns associated with holiday entertaining.
These new and relevant statistics, gathered from a statistically significant cross-section of the U.S. population, are valuable tools for demonstrating the importance of a proactive approach to safety during the holiday season. The trends and data garnered from this survey tool will be used to help draw consumer and media attention to the unique safety hazards posed by holiday activities.
Fire Safety
Fire Escape/Emergency Planning:
Regardless of whether they celebrate winter holiday most people (50%) expect to have guests in their home during the holiday season.
- 52% of those expected guests will stay overnight, and 56% of the guests will include children under the age of 18. For 78% of those expecting children among the guests, the youngest child will be under 10 years of age.
- 47% of those responding will welcome a senior citizen, someone over the age of 65, into their home this holiday season.
- Most people are either unlikely or very unlikely (55%) to inform guests about the location of safety features in their home this holiday season. An even greater share
- An even greater share (62%) of respondents is unlikely or very unlikely to explain their fire escape plan to guests.
Space Heaters:
More than a quarter (27%) of respondents reported using one or more space heaters.
- The overwhelming majority (97%) of those who use space heaters report using electric ones.
- As reported by 37% of respondents, the principal use for space heaters is to supplement a home's central heating.
- Space heaters are most typically used in bedrooms (60%), living or family rooms (48%), and bathrooms (18%).
- Households with children under the age of 5 are not only more likely to have a space heater (34% to 26%), but they are also considerably more likely to leave the space heater turned on while they sleep (62% to 29%).
Holiday Decorating Safety
Winter/Holiday Celebrations:
Nearly 86% of respondents celebrate a winter holiday by decorating their homes.
- Families with children under the age of 5 are significantly more likely to celebrate a winter holiday (97%) than those without young children (84%).
- The most common holiday decorations are, in descending order, lighted Christmas trees (86%), indoor decorations using electric lights (64%), outdoor decorations using electric lights (53%), and candles (50%).
Electric Lights:
- Nearly 70% of those who use lighted outdoor holiday decorations report using 10 or fewer light strings for those decorations.
- 81% of those who use light strings for their outdoor holiday decorations indicate that all of those strings are rated for outdoor use.
- Most electric light decorations used for outdoor display during the holidays (58%) are between one and five years old. The vast majority (89%) of these decorations are between one and 10 years old.
- Nearly 76% of respondents use between two and five light strings plugged together in order to make a longer string for outdoor decorations.
- When compared to behavior regarding indoor decorations, a smaller share (47%) of respondents reported that they always turn off their outdoor lighted holiday decorations before leaving home. Similarly 68% reported turning their outdoor lighted holiday decorations off before going to bed.
- 32% of respondents plan to buy new holiday lights this year.
- Of those planning to buy new holiday lights this year, nearly 88% of them are considering buying LED lights.
- The main reason, as reported by 36% of respondents, for purchasing or considering the purchase of LED lights is energy efficiency.
- 71% of respondents indicate that they always turn off their Christmas tree lights before leaving home, while nearly 77% do so before going to bed.
- Less than half of the survey respondents (44%) reported that they frequently or always take energy usage into consideration when making decorating decisions. A slightly larger minority (46%) indicated that they take energy usage into consideration when buying new decorations.
- Most respondents expect energy usage around the holidays to either stay the same (53%) or increase (40%) compared to other times of the year.
Extension Cords:
- 63% of those using electric decorations this holiday season expect to use one or more extension cords to bring power to those decorations.
- Most people do not inspect their extension cords often. 60% report never, rarely, or occasionally inspecting their extension cords.
- Extension cords serve as a permanent power source for a device needing electricity in the homes of 52% of respondents.
- The vast majority of extension cords in use are more than one year old with the preponderance of those (50%) being between one and five years old.
- Most people (83%) report that they do not string extension cords together for use around the home.
- Households with children under 5 tend to be less careful with extension cord usage than other respondents. A greater share of families with young children think they will use extension cords to bring electric power to their holiday decorations this holiday season (76% to 61%), are more likely to report having used an indoor rated extension cord for an outdoor application than other respondents (32% to 20%), and are considerably more likely to string extension cords together for use in or around the home (35% to 14%).
Cooking Safety
- About a quarter of respondents (26%) expect that seniors will be involved in cooking activities in their homes this holiday season.
- The devices most frequently used for food preparation during the holiday season include electric range or cooktop (52%), electric oven (51%), slow cooker or crockpot (44%), and gas range or cooktop (33%).
- More than 88% of respondents report having never or rarely forgotten about something they've left cooking on the stove or in the oven. By a margin of 24% to 9% compared to other households, however, households with children under the age of 5 reported forgetting about something cooking on the stove or in the oven sometimes, often, or all the time.
Child Safety
Families with Children
- Families with children under the age of 5 are significantly more likely to celebrate a winter holiday (97%) than those without young children (84%).
- Households with children under 5 tend to be less careful with extension cord usage than other respondents. A greater share of families with young children think they will use extension cords to bring electric power to their holiday decorations this holiday season (76% to 61%), are more likely to report having used an indoor rated extension cord for an outdoor application than other respondents (32% to 20%), and are considerably more likely to string extension cords together for use in or around the home (35% to 14%).
- Households with children under the age of 5 are more likely to leave their indoor lighted holiday decorations turned on after they have gone to bed than other households (20% to 13%).
Tamper Resistant Receptacles:
- 74% of the population is not familiar with the term tamper-resistant receptacle
- Of those familiar with the term tamper-resistant receptacles only 38% responded that they had TRRs installed in their homes.
- On a brighter note, households with children under the age of 5 were more likely to be familiar with the term tamper-resistant receptacle (36% to 25%) and were considerably more likely to have them installed in their homes (72% to 30%).
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