Tips For Hanging Christmas Lights On Your Roof

‘Tis the season to decorate your home! Who’s excited?!?! Christmas is hands down our favorite time of the year, so the day after we carve the turkey, the tree goes up and we prepare ourselves for a day of exterior illumination. Some people are intimidated with the thought of using a ladder and reaching up high, so we are here to provide a few tips and tricks to make the entire Christmas light hanging process that much easier!

Organized Storage = Less Headaches

To make things easier on yourself, start out by purchasing a few large plastic bins to store your Christmas decorations. As far as strings of lights go, get yourself the collapsable cylinders that the lights wrap around it. These prevent the lights from becoming tangling and will reduce the likelihood that they get damaged either putting them away or taking them out to hang up. Keep everything organized to cut down on wasted time.

“I Forget Where We Put These Last Year”

A lot has happened since you put up your lights last year. Don’t feel down on yourself if you can’t remember where you put the green extension cord last year. Luckily for all of us, we live in a time where technology is king. This year once everything is where you want it and you are happy with your set up, use your cellphone to take pictures of the house and every cord you have. Then, print out all of the pictures and store them in your Christmas bins. That way when you go to hang everything last year, you can use your “cheat sheets” to get everything back to where you want it in a quarter of the time!

Prep Your Lights

Start out by checking all of your lights. Plug in each strand to (1) make sure they work and (2) check to see that each bulb is lit. Once each one is working as it should, lay them out in the order you wish to string them up. Before you set up a ladder, fill your pockets with light clips so that you don’t have to go up and down the ladder even more than you have to. We also recommend having a ladder buddy, for safety sake.

Prevent Damage To Your Roof

As we mentioned above, plastic light clips are your friend. You can clip them onto gutters, shingles or eaves of you home with no damage to your roof or shingles. Please, whatever you do, please do not use a staple gun like Clark Griswold. There’s no need to put homes in your shingles, which can lead to BIG problems with your roof.

If you plan on walking across your roof, be careful. To minimize damage, walk gently and wear soft shoes like sneakers.