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The 2 houses across
the street look fabulous and the kids are really on my back to do some
Xmas decorating. I don't have any tree's or bushes to hang the lights on,
just the house. I want things to look neat. Please help.
could someone pls tell me how to hang Xmas lights? |
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Depends on the type of lights. If you use the C-9's (large outdoor bulbs)
and probably also the C-7's (slightly smaller, nightlight-sized bulbs),
they look best with a light-clip for each light. If you skimp and don't
hang one clip per bulb, they tend to sag and look bad, and also blow
around, banging the bulbs against the house and burning out very quickly.
Many styles of clips are available where you buy your lights. Gutter
clips are the easiest to use, IMHO...
If you use the 'mini lights', you can hang them just about anywhere (assuming a wood surface) with a small, large-headed nail (e.g. a roofing
nail). The mini-lights are made up of several twisted wires, just put the
nails in, and place the head through the wires. Use enough nails to keep
them even. I've used this method with a lot of success. In my new home,
I put lights around about 200' of split rail fence, as well as on the
house, with this method.
With 'string-along' lights, this is pretty easy, but make sure you don't
connect too many sets together. You don't want to celebrate Christmas
with a fire... I usually try to use a heavy-duty extension cord running
to the middle of the layout, and then run lights in both directions from
this cord. That way lots of current isn't running through the dinky
little wires of the lights themselves...
BTW: The bigger bulbs cost a lot more to run because they take alot more
power, the bulbs burn out faster, and when the bulbs do burn out, there's
a noticible gap (usually only about 1 bulb per foot), so you'll want to
replace them soon. The strings themselves will last a long time, though (my parents had some 30+ year old ones that we finally replaced a few
years ago...) The mini-lights biggest problem is that they're wired in
series, so one loose bulb will kill the whole string, or a good chunk of
it (depending on how it's wired). Unfortunately, the plastic tee's that
lights now come on tend to damage the wiring and pull out the bulbs. I
had to spend a bunch of time fixing, and even re-splicing, brand new
Christmas lights this year... Generally I use mounting clips available where christmas lights are sold.
I do however attach the lights directly to my brick house with a hot glue
gun. The lights attach firmly but are fairly easy to remove at the end of
the season the glue pulls off with just a dusty coating of brick and
mortar. |
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