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Before you go shopping, it’s a good idea to think about the kinds of lights you prefer, and the overall effect you’re hoping to achieve this year. Take a moment to step back, look at your home from across the street, and map out a lighting gameplan. We’ve also got you covered on ideas of how to recycle Christmas lights. Check the effect after you have covered about six feet of the breadth of the wall but turning on the lights. I love to let the lights cascade onto the floor for an artful, spilled-over-with-joy feeling.
EDISHINE LED Outdoor Spotlight
Think ahead and pick a day or two when the weather is expected to be clear—and relatively warm, if you live somewhere where it gets chilly. Get started early enough in the day that you aren’t scrambling to finish up as night falls. In recent years, many homeowners have opted for LED over incandescent lights because they use about 80% less energy. "LED lights are some of the best Christmas lights for outdoors because they save money on energy costs and last longer than incandescent lights," says McCoy. Map out the focal points of your house—think your roof, windows, and railings—then measure each area to ensure you have enough strands. Sections, bend the sections into hooks and attach the hooks to the string of lights every five feet or so.
Novelty Lights C9 Clear Christmas String Light Set
Hanging outdoor holiday lights means finding a way to fasten the strands to your house. Create your own inexpensive and long-lasting holiday light clips with a staple used for electrical cable wiring. Take one-time measurements of your home so you know how many Christmas lights you'll need. (There's nothing worse than hanging a string and realizing it only covers two-thirds of the intended space.) Then evaluate your power situation.
How to Hang Christmas Lights on Your Tree
Look at your home from across the street at night to identify which areas you want to adorn. Consider what will look best and what level of installation challenge you're confident tackling. Bushes and hedges are the easiest spots to illuminate—you can use net lights for a quick cover to light them up—while roof peaks are more challenging. Add the Werner 10-inch stabilizer when using an extension ladder.
Check the Weather
If you’re wondering how to put Christmas lights on a house, here are 6 STEPS to doing it right without damaging your roof, your siding, and most importantly – YOU. Start from the bottom of the tree and work upwards, winding the string around the tree both over and under branches, and placing some lights deeper into the branches. Hanging Christmas lights in a tree in the front yard makes a beautiful display as they illuminate its shape.
BEST LIGHTS TO SET A FESTIVE MOOD THROUGHOUT YOUR PROPERTY
But if you can’t see anything, swap in new fuses to see if the lights work. Gutters also happen to be great for hanging holiday lights, and you can do it without a ladder in some cases. 1×2 board or something similar, a strong magnet and some galvanized steel plumber’s hanger strap. C7 Christmas lights– All types of “C” incandescent bulbs look like small strawberries and are larger than clear string lights and LEDs. Clear string lights– These small, incandescent clear lights are smaller than C7 and C9 bulbs but usually larger than similar LED strands. LED holiday lights– LED bulbs are generally much smaller than their incandescent counterparts and are great energy savers.
Best outdoor Christmas lights 2023, tried and tested - The Independent
Best outdoor Christmas lights 2023, tried and tested.
Posted: Tue, 29 Aug 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
It lets you directly view your work area while increasing the ladder’s stability, your safety, and your reach. Mar-resistant rubber end caps protect the ladder from damaging your house. Install pathway lights or spotlights by pushing stakes into the ground. Gretchen Heber is a writer, marketer, and entrepreneur based in Texas. If you've measured and found multiple strands are necessary, check the manufacturer's instructions to see how many strands can safely be connected (too many can become a fire hazard).
Plant Power Stakes
So, before you go hanging up your lights on your gutters, give them a test drive and plug them in to ensure they're all working. But safety measures don’t apply solely to your Christmas lights. You need to make sure you’re well-prepared for your project. That means using ladders, tools, and other equipment to make your project go safely and smoothly.
Think Beyond the Roofline
And it means having a plan for what you’ll do if something unexpected happens. Now that you know what kind of lights you want to use, it’s time to start thinking about where you’re going to put them. The first thing you need to do is find a safe and accessible outlet.
Once you've landed on a style, you must also decide on what type of Christmas lights you want to hang on your property—LED or incandescent lights. Here’s a great way to store your holiday lights tangle-free after you put them away for the year. Take some strips of cardboard and cut out a slot on each end, making a spool of sorts to keep the lights from slipping off.
Unlike wrapping strands around your tree or draping them across your mantel, hanging Christmas lights outside can be a dangerous and daunting task. Before climbing that ladder, make sure you have the right materials handy and a design (and safety!) plan in place. There are dozens of varieties of Christmas string lights, so know the difference before you begin shopping. For example, icicle lights—like white icicle LED lights—come in large hanging curtains that will cover a lot of area. Other hanging lights come in specific shapes, like snowflakes, while traditional light strands create a uniform outline around the house.
Speaking of trees, instead of wrapping light strings around individual tree branches, purchase tree clips to hold lights in place (and save your sanity). Before you buy Christmas string lights, you need to measure the outside of your house. If you want to hang lights around the entire perimeter, you have to know how many feet that'll take. Be sure to keep in mind where the nearest electrical outlet is located and add extra length if needed to reach it.
We recommend light strings that have a male plug at one end and a female plug at the other end—these are best for connecting (or “daisy-chaining) together from end to end. We'll show you how to put Christmas lights on a house safely and securely—so they shine all season long. Plastic light clips are a great choice along gutters and rooflines. Getting savvy about hanging lights also means you can achieve the look you want with minimum fuss and maximum speed and, crucially, stay safe, too.
