NA - Permanent Christmas Lights

SixPapaCharlie

SixPapaCharlie

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Looking to install permanent Christmas lights on the house but I have questions about product and installation.
For anyone that has done this, do you have a specific brand / style you recommend?
I have been looking at the LED strip lights and also the String Lights that are getting popular

For reference, this is what I am calling Strip Lights (on the left) and String Lights (on the right):

1732286551352.png 1732286636429.png


If anyone has added either of these styles, are there pros / cons to them?


Now my installation question is about what to do with gaps. My roof has gaps between the different peeks and I don't want a strip of light floating in the air between gaps.
What is the secret to running lights to the 3 peaks shown without having a string of lights floating in the air or running back up the roof to the next dormer?

When I am having dinner with my family in the front yard, I want to make sure the lights look professional.


1732286510204.png
 
Not necessarily the strip lights, but from what I've researched the 'professional' light installers custom-fit the lights to your house the first time around to take care of those gaps. I would assume you could do the same with the LED strip lights somehow? I've never used them before so can't speak to the mechanics of it at all.
 
Pros:
Great time saver​
Looks professional​
Why don't you go ahead and install an exterior sound system while you're at it​
​
Cons:
Your neighbors will hate you beginning the day after Halloween​
You've challenged the Goldblum's next door to construct the largest illuminated carved rock menorah in history​
You've caught the attention of the building department and your property tax just doubled​
 
Tell me regional pilot pay has gone WAY up without telling me...:tongue:

I didn't know this was a "thing". People really permanently install lights to use them one month out of the year? Strip lights from China last more than a year outdoors? Dogs and cats, sleeping together?!
 
Jim K said:
Strip lights from China last more than a year outdoors?
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That's my worry when it comes to any of these fixtures that contain integrated LEDs, indoor or outdoor.
 
Jim K said:
Tell me regional pilot pay has gone WAY up without telling me...:tongue:

I didn't know this was a "thing". People really permanently install lights to use them one month out of the year? Strip lights from China last more than a year outdoors? Dogs and cats, sleeping together?!
Click to expand...

Ha! not a regional pilot yet, just livin off my sugar momma. I am sure when I get the class date, rates will find a way to cut in half.

Its the thing in my area. All the houses getting these "Jelly Fish" lighting systems which I am not overly fond of but the perm. thing is rampant.
My motivation is primarily that I am feeling less comfortable on ladders as I get older and wiser but I want the kids to have memories of getting the house done up for the holidays.

The weird thing with the perm lights as people not only have them year round but they are ON year round.
Just white any old day of the week then festive colors for Madi Gras, St. Patrick's day, when their football team wins, and on and on.
This was the first year I noticed Halloween lights are a thing. It looked like Christmas in North Texas, just orange and green.

As far as durability, I am not sure.
 
Use a bunch of addressable LED strips, like the one linked below. Cut each string to length, add extension cables between LED sections. Put everything into an outer layer of UV-resistant clear tubing, seal the ends and the connectors after packing them with dielectric grease. Voltage drop might be an issue, so I usually feed power in-between the sections, not just at one end.

Because each LED is addressable, you can program some nice custom dynamic patterns, taylored to all the holidays of the year. Nice orange-themed light show fot Halloween, red-white-blue sparkles for the 4th, and so on.


That's how these guys do it:


 
Jim K said:
…I didn't know this was a "thing". People really permanently install lights to use them one month out of the year? Strip lights from China last more than a year outdoors? Dogs and cats, sleeping together?!
Click to expand...

Yep. There’s a few houses in our neighborhood that’ve done it. Pro install is averaging 5 AMUs here. The light colors are controllable. Most nights, they’re just white down lights. 4th of July, one family does red - white - blue. Halloween gets orange/white treatment, christmas seems to have a lot of the 5-color effect going on.
 
Jim K said:
People really permanently install lights to use them one month out of the year?
Click to expand...
Where I used to live in Alaska if you didn't have Christmas lights up by August, then you are too late. And Might be May before getting to take them down. So a number of folks leave them up all year.

And be sure they can be seen from space...
 
TCABM said:
Yep. There’s a few houses in our neighborhood that’ve done it. Pro install is averaging 5 AMUs here. The light colors are controllable. Most nights, they’re just white down lights. 4th of July, one family does red - white - blue. Halloween gets orange/white treatment, christmas seems to have a lot of the 5-color effect going on.
Click to expand...
People really have too much time and/or money on their hands.

Me? I roll old school and put up a few strings of C9 incandescents, just like grandma used to do.
 
whatever you choose, please be kind to your neighbors!

there are some folks around here that have permanent lights like that installed. Kind of cool
My wife loves places with white lights....like restaurants and such...just the dim little "twinkle lights" so these permanent lights can become that during non-holiday times.... great. Keep it classy, keep it dim, keep it steady

but some folks around here set up a theme for every holiday.... pink and red for valentine's day. Green for St Patrick's day, etc... Walking the dog one morning at 5:30 AM or some such thing, I came across a nauseating flashing light display changing between different shades of whatever the colors were for that given holiday...I think it was Valentine's day. It was like a strobe light show with different colors and brighness lighting up all the neighbors' houses! I felt so bad for the neighbors who had to deal with that all night long! I almost went and knocked on the door as a public service!
 
Putting permanent lights on is a heck of a lot of work. I’d leave it to the pros. For our house, they built aluminum railings that the lights fit in, color matched to the eves, and custom fit to every eve. During the day, even if you look close, you can’t really tell that they’re there. You can control them off your phone with an app with hundreds of preset patterns, or customize your own animations and patterns if you like. Seems like most nights the kids are doing some kind of theme. This is a July 4th animation seems like every holiday including Kwanzaa has a color theme. ;-). If that doesn’t fire up the neighbors, the 20 some odd outdoor speakers we have installed should take care of it ;-)IMG_1713.jpeg
 
Dave Theisen said:
There’s a lot of folks with year round Christmas light here in Georgia, but I don’t think it’s quite what you are looking for. :)
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When I first saw this thread title before I opened it... I was thinking the same thing (if I'm understanding your intent correctly)
Except it was Louisianna, not Georgia. I used to travel to a lot of backwood places to paper mills, and would routinely see houses in rural Louisiana with Christmas lights still up in mid-summer.... and most were only halfway hanging on..... it looked horrible!
 
Bill said:
People really have too much time and/or money on their hands.

Me? I roll old school and put up a few strings of C9 incandescents, just like grandma used to do.
Click to expand...
I believe a nobel winning economist said that the wide spread adoption of year round christmas lights was a sign that we are experiencing an economic collapse that will make us a third world country.
 
I'm glad you can't see my house from the road and only 20% of it from the air. Gives me a reason to be a lazy scrooge.
 
Urgh - I'm about to climb on the roof right now to put ours up.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Looking to install permanent Christmas lights on the house but I have questions about product and installation.
For anyone that has done this, do you have a specific brand / style you recommend?
I have been looking at the LED strip lights and also the String Lights that are getting popular
Click to expand...


I don't have mine in yet... I'm telling myself I need to do the siding first, and maybe they'll let me have the cherry picker for an extra day to put them on the high spots. I do not own, nor do I want to own or use, a ladder long enough to reach all the peaks of my roof.

My brother does have addressable LED strings on his house, and he's the one that's been corrupting me.

It looks like at least in some of your pics, they're using the small LED can lights installed into the soffits. You can also use the strings or the strips.

Personally, I'm planning to do strips and I've already been experimenting. It's kind of a fun geek thing to do. I put ground effects on my son's bed for fun (and to help me not step on legos after I put him to bed):

Screenshot 2024-11-24 at 2.14.29 AM.png
FWIW, it's not as bright as that pic makes it look... He can sleep.

I'd recommend you check out this video - It kind of has everything you need to know if you want to tackle it yourself, and I found it really helpful:


Jim K said:
I didn't know this was a "thing". People really permanently install lights to use them one month out of the year?
Click to expand...
Naah, use 'em all year long! Red white and blue for July 4th, orange, green and purple for Halloween, team colors on game day, lots of possibilities. Even just plain white can make your house look good.
 
Is this what suburban folks do these days instead of putting wings of unusual size on their Civics? :biggrin:

I do occasionally get the urge to build a giant Antikythera mechanism, except instead of predicting celestial events, it would arrange appropriate decor in my yard for the various affinity group appreciation events.

Then again, why make a simple thing complicated?

Oct 1: put garden zombie in front yard
Nov 1: put pilgrim hat on garden zombie
Dec 1: put santa hat on garden zombie
 
GeorgeC said:
Is this what suburban folks do these days instead of putting wings of unusual size on their Civics? :biggrin:

I do occasionally get the urge to build a giant Antikythera mechanism, except instead of predicting celestial events, it would arrange appropriate decor in my yard for the various affinity group appreciation events.

Then again, why make a simple thing complicated?

Oct 1: put garden zombie in front yard
Nov 1: put pilgrim hat on garden zombie
Dec 1: put santa hat on garden zombie
Click to expand...
Remember the concrete geese that everyone dressed up....what, 20 years ago? That may have just been a midwest thing.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Common? I don't think I've ever seen one and I've lived in the Midwest for nearly my whole life!

Maybe it's because in Wisconsin we just paint cows instead.
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My little town has 600 people. In the 90's, I'd bet there were 200 concrete geese.

I'm seeing an opportunity here. If @SixPapaCharlie wants to be a trendsetter instead of just copying the neighbors, he needs a concrete goose. WAY cheaper than installing LED lights, you can decorate for all the holidays, and not contribute to light pollution. Win,win,win, honk.

https://www.amazon.com/goose-clothes-cement/s?k=goose+clothes+for+cement+goose
 
1 - I think it's a better idea than getting permanent makeup.
2 - Why would you have dinner in the front lawn?
 
I'm about 1/2 way through installing the Govee outdoor led strips. So far I'm pretty pleased. I found a couple different ways to clean up the gaps after some experimentation. Once done it should look pretty clean

20241125_221453.jpg
 
Jim K said:
Remember the concrete geese that everyone dressed up....what, 20 years ago? That may have just been a midwest thing.
Click to expand...
Never hoid of em. The only lawn memes I remember were bathtub grottos.
 
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