If you are looking to decorate your Hillcountry home with holiday lights, you might be wondering how to do it without damaging the roof. In the past, homeowners would use small finishing nails and hooks to hang lights, but this left holes and dents that could require roof repairs later on.
Your Central Texas roof can look beautiful for Christmas and New Years’ without the need to create holes in the gutters or fascia boards. Here’s how to hang your holiday lights with plastic clips.
Buy Enough Plastic Light Holders for Your Roof Line
Your holiday decorating chores begin with a trip to the hardware store. Many retailers sell plastic clips called, ‘all-purpose light holders’, or ‘shingle and gutter clips.’ These are what you can use to safely hang your Christmas lights without using nails or staples.
Make sure to purchase enough to hang all of your lights. These plastic clips are designed to hold one light per clip. So a few hundred lights needs a few hundred clips! However the results will be perfectly straight and secure holiday trim for ht e home.
Pre-Clip Your Lights
You don’t want to spend anymore time out in the cold and up on your roof than necessary. Consider pre-clipping all of the holiday lights before taking them outside.
Different brands sell different styles of plastic clips, so be sure to check the instructions to see how the clips attach to your holiday lights. This also gives you a chance to untangle and neatly coil your holiday lights.
Follow Safe Ladder and Roof Practices
Always follow recommended safety practices when you are going up on a ladder or working on your roof. It’s best if you have someone to help out on this job. You’ll need someone to hold the ladder for you and hand you lights and other tools up on the roof.
Also, keep these suggestions in mind:
- Don’t go up on the roof on a snowy or rainy day.
- Wear snugly fitting shoes or boots with good tread.
- Work on your roof only in the daylight.
- Set up the ladder on a strong, flat surface.
- Check for any power lines overhead or on the roof and avoid them.
- Maintain three points (hand and feet) of contact with the house or ladder at all times.
Check that the Light Plug Reaches a Power Outlet
It’s easy to forget the need to power your holiday lights after hanging them. Before you do, double-check that your lights can reach a power outlet. You may need to purchase an extension cord to run power to lights on a roof.
Snap the Lights into Place
Last but certainly not least, snap the light clips into place wherever you wish to create holiday cheer. Most holiday light holders are designed to be all-purpose clips that can be attached to shingles, gutters, or roofing.
Grab a Precise Price Estimate for Roofing Services in Central Texas
At Caden Roofing, we take pride in providing roof joy to our customers throughout the year. Whether you want your home to look better for the holidays, or need to make some roof repairs after installing lights with nails, we can help out. Ask us to create a free roof damage report for your Central Texas home. We’ll also create a free roofing estimate for you.
Caden Roofing has trained roofing contractors in Central Texas who can work on your:
- Commercial Roofing
- Residential Roofing
- Storm Damage
If you need help with any of these areas, give us a call. We’ll set up an appointment with a roofing specialist right away.