Icicle Christmas Lighting Tips & Tricks
May 12, 2023Take a hassle-free approach to Christmas lights with icicle lighting tips and tricks to achieve festive décor in a simple and timely way.
It’s about to be that time of year again. Holiday festivities, decorative cookies, and most importantly, your incredible Christmas lights display! Before your mind starts whirling with all the possibilities that LED Christmas lights can offer you this holiday season, let’s make things a bit more manageable by taking a look at just one style of outdoor Christmas lights: LED Icicle Lights! We’ll show you how to plan for a successful installation with some easy lighting tips and how to hang your new falling icicle lights to get your house looking merry and bright!
Planning is Key: Guidance for a Successful Icicle Lights Display
LED icicle lights are a popular choice for Christmas and holiday lighting with their classic yet beautiful appearance. Roof awnings, overhangs, peaks, and windows are all excellent locations for hanging icicle lights because of how natural the drops lay, creating a professional-quality display when either hanging on angles or across straight lines. They can even look great on the eaves of your roof! Just make sure to cluster them together— if stretched too far apart, the look is completely lost. These weather-resistant, durable acrylic plastic lights have low energy consumption and low heat output, making them an environmentally-friendly LED lighting solution that is not only perfect for your next holiday lighting display but versatile enough to be used either indoors or outdoors, all year round!
Planning Your Design
The holiday decorating itch may strike suddenly and without warning (we’re talking to you, November decorators!) Before you start, it’s best to step back and develop an overall game plan. Resist the urge to simply “wing it.” Having a plan set in place will save you energy and time, knowing exactly where your icicle lights will hang and what light accessories you may need to achieve a seamless look of professional quality.
Pick a Focal Point
For example, it would be silly to start hanging your beautiful new lights on the back of your house where no one can see them! Figure out where you want to attract the most attention with your lights and begin your design there. Without a focal point, your house might look like someone blasted lights out of a cannon all over your lawn, Martha May Whovier style like in How the Grinch Stole Chrismas!
How Do You Hang Lights on Gutters?
One of the best ways to hang your LED Icicle Lights, and most Christmas lights in general, is to use the advantages your domain already provides for you: gutters! Check your gutter thickness and shingle flexibility to determine how to best hang lights along the roofline. However, using gutter clips will also allow you to secure your Christmas lights easily along the exterior. Say good-bye to putting staples in your home and non-symmetrical drooping lights, and instead, say hello to your beautiful new light display!
Make Sure to Measure
Measure any straight line you want to adorn with lights. Taking and keeping track of measurements will help you decide how many strands you need to achieve a crisp, clean, straight line that isn’t pulled too taught or hung too loose, causing unsightly droops. Also, measure the distance to your power source— no one wants a beautiful light display with no way to turn it on!
Fa-la-la-la-la La-Lots-Of-Lights
The number of lights you’ll need to decorate your home or roof is a matter of personal preference, but it is always a good idea to buy more footage of lighting than you think you will need. A good rule of thumb is to have at least 20 feet of extra lighting, just in case you may need it. And if you don’t, then you have plenty of icicle lights leftover to decorate even more of your home! Of course, if your goal is to see your house from space, stagger two sets of lights side-by-side or look for lights that are spaced closer together. Denser lights equal brighter lights— the more you know!
Merry Installation Tips
The time has come! You’ve planned your design and installation approach, you’ve measured, you’ve bought enough lights to illuminate Whoville, now you’re ready to set up your new LED icicle lights. It may seem like a daunting task to actually get up and hang them from your roof, but never fear! We here at LED Holiday Lighting have compiled some of our most requested tips on how to specifically hang icicle lights, so you can rest easy knowing that when you do hang up those magical bulbs, you’ll know exactly what you need to do to achieve pro-worthy results.
- After removing your icicle lights from the packaging, they will appear somewhat shorter than you might expect. Spend a few minutes gently tugging on each individual drop to help straighten out and elongate the light strings. Icicle lights have some natural waves to them, so if you can’t get the drops completely straight, that’s ok! They should also straighten over time as they hang.
- Keep in mind that lighted length is measured from the first bulb to the last. Total length is measured from plug to plug, whereas drop lengths are measured from the first bulb in the drop to the last. Some minor variations in drop length are natural as these are approximate measurements that can differ depending on the strings’ natural curvature.
- If you have extra length leftover after hanging your icicle lights, simply run the excess back over the ends of the lines. The beauty of icicle lights is that they blend together naturally and can be layered to create a gorgeous effect!
- If you need to create one long continuous run of icicle lights powered by a single outlet, you should absolutely use warm white LED icicle lights over incandescent. Depending on the light count and style, you can connect anywhere from 20-45 LED icicle lights together end-to-end, whereas most incandescent sets only allow a connection of 3-5 strings on one run.
- To temporarily install icicle lights on deck or porch railings, zip ties in matching railing colors will work best. When using zip ties to secure light strings, leave a small amount of slack when tightening the zip tie, so you do not pinch the light wires. For long term installation or the ability to hang alternative light types through the year, consider using screw-in hooks or gutter clips to hang icicle lights on wooden railings and surfaces.
There you have it! We hope you can feel at least somewhat more prepared for this upcoming holiday season with this comprehensive lighting guide, and at the very least, you can say you know a lot more about LED icicle lights than you did before! For more high-quality LED Christmas lighting tips, guides, or products, please visit our website.