DIY vs Professional Holiday Light Installation in Fresno: What Homeowners Should Know

Every October we get the same question. Is it worth hiring someone for holiday light installation in Fresno, or can you just do it yourself with a weekend and a ladder? Plenty of homeowners do it themselves every year, and plenty more swear they will never climb up there again. Here is what actually goes into the job so you can decide which camp you want to be in.

The ladder is where things go wrong

Most of the risk in hanging lights isn’t the lights, it’s the ladder. A lot of homes around Fresno and Clovis have steep rooflines or a second story, and reaching the peak means leaning a ladder on ground that isn’t always level. Add cool, damp Central Valley mornings this time of year and a roof edge or gutter can be slicker than it looks. Emergency rooms see a real spike in ladder falls every November and December, and a surprising number of them are otherwise careful homeowners just trying to get the lights up before Thanksgiving.

Clips, staples and what they do to your house

The second common mistake is how the lights actually get attached. Staples and nails are fast, but they punch holes in fascia board and shingles that let water in later, and they are easy to miss when you are hurrying to finish before dark. Plastic gutter clips are safer for the house, but the wrong size clip for your gutter profile either won’t hold in a Central Valley wind or pinches the wire enough to wear through the insulation over a season or two. None of it is complicated once you know what to look for, but it is the kind of thing you only learn after doing a few dozen houses.

Timers, outlets and extension cords

Outdoor lighting also needs power that can handle being outside for two months. That means a GFCI protected outlet, cords rated for exterior use, and a timer or smart plug so the lights aren’t running all night or getting forgotten during the day. Running an indoor extension cord along a damp roofline, or overloading one outlet with every strand on the house, is how bulbs blow out early or a breaker trips at the worst possible moment, usually right as guests are pulling into the driveway.

What hiring it out actually buys you

When Lumon handles holiday light installation, you aren’t paying for someone to do what you could do yourself slowly. You are paying for a crew that already owns the right ladders for a two story Fresno or Clovis roofline, carries commercial grade lights and clips sized to your actual gutter and fascia, and knows how to lay the strands out so the lines look clean from the street instead of uneven in the middle. We also handle takedown and storage, so you are not the one back on the roof in January pulling staples out of your shingles.

If you like being up on the roof and you have a single story home with easy access, DIY can work just fine. If the idea of balancing on a ladder in December fog does not sound fun, that is exactly what we are here for.

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