When to Book Christmas Light Installation in Connecticut

Most people start thinking about Christmas lights in November, which is the month the work is hardest to do. If you want a professional install, the useful thing to understand is that the install season and the booking season are two different things, and they are separated by a couple of months.

Booking earlier does not get the lights up earlier. It gets you a better choice of which week they go up.

Why late summer and early fall is when to get on the calendar

An install calendar fills from the front. Every week between the start of November and mid December is a fixed quantity, and the people who ask first pick from a full list. The people who ask later pick from what is left.

That is the whole argument. There is no deadline and nothing expires. A request in September comes with a choice of dates. A request in early December comes with whatever the weather and the schedule allow.

Early fall is also when a quote is easiest to do properly. A design walk in September happens in daylight, in mild weather, with the trees still giving you a sense of what the tree line looks like lit. The same visit in late November happens in the dark at four in the afternoon, in the cold.

What November actually looks like in Northeast Connecticut

The install season here is short and it gets harder every week.

The light goes early

After the clocks change, useful working light on a roofline is gone by late afternoon. A crew that could do a full day in October is doing a shorter one in November, and that compresses the calendar for everyone.

Cold changes how the work goes

Ladder work in the cold is slower and more careful work, and it should be. Wire is stiffer in the cold and less willing to sit flat along an eave. Clips are harder to seat with gloves on, and harder still without them.

Snow and ice on rooflines

Once there is snow or a glaze of ice on a pitch, the ridge and peak work stops until it clears. A single storm can push a day of installs, and every job behind it moves with it. This is normal for the season and it is planned around, but it means a date booked late has less room to slide.

The ground freezes

Stakes for walkway markers and yard elements go in easily in early November and get difficult once the top few inches of ground are frozen. Anything that has to be anchored in the lawn is better done sooner.

What a professional install actually covers

The gap between a professional install and a run to the hardware store is bigger than most people expect, and it is not mainly about the bulbs.

• Lights that are measured and cut to your house rather than sold in fixed lengths, so every run ends where the roof ends
• Commercial grade wire and sockets, which is what a Connecticut December of wind, freeze, and thaw asks for
• A layout that suits the architecture, so the display follows the lines of the house instead of fighting them
• Installation on the roofline, trees, shrubs, porch, and walkways as quoted
• Timers set and cords routed out of sight, rather than an orange extension cord across the lawn
• Takedown after the season
• Off season storage, so a set that fits your house is not living in your garage

Store bought strands come in fixed lengths and a roofline does not. That mismatch is where the four foot gap at the corner comes from, and the droop where two strands join, and the cord you can see from the road.

Cost is covered in detail in our Christmas light installation cost guide. The short version is $600 to $1,400 for the season for most single family homes, with the number driven mostly by how much of the property gets lit rather than by the size of the house.

Get the gutters done before the lights go on

This is the sequencing detail that catches people every year. Light clips sit on the shingle edge and the gutter lip, which is exactly where a gutter cleaning needs access. If the lights are already up, clearing a blocked downspout in December means pulling a section of the display and putting it back in the cold.

The trouble is that gutters cannot be cleaned until the leaves have finished dropping, and oaks around here hold on well into November. So the two jobs land close together, and they have to happen in the right order. Gutter cleaning runs $175 to $325 for most homes, and there is a full fall sequence in our fall exterior cleaning checklist.

The same logic applies to anything else you want done to the outside of the house before the holidays. A house wash or a window cleaning is a September or October job, not a December one, and both are better before the lights than after. If you are hosting, clean glass does more for how a room feels in December than most people give it credit for, and the reasoning behind fall timing is in our window cleaning cost guide.

What to have ready when you ask for a quote

You do not need much, but these five things turn a vague conversation into a firm number quickly.

A photo of the front of the house

Taken from the street, in daylight, showing the full roofline. This is the single most useful thing you can send. A second photo from an angle helps if the house has a wing or an attached garage set back from the front.

Which lines you want lit

The front eave only is a different job from the front eave plus the peaks, the garage, and the wing over the porch. Point at what you want on the photo if it is easier than describing it.

Anything beyond the roofline

Wrapped tree trunks, lit shrubs, porch railings, columns, garland on the door, wreaths, and walkway markers. This is usually where a smaller quote becomes a larger one, and it is also the part that makes a display look designed rather than outlined.

Warm white or color

Warm white reads traditional and is what most houses around here end up with. Full color gives you more range. C9 bulbs are the big traditional ones that read from the road, and mini lights suit wrapping trees and railings. Most displays use both, and you do not have to decide before you ask.

Where the outdoor outlets are

Which exterior outlets work, whether they are on a switch, and whether anything is already on a timer. It sounds minor and it changes how cords get routed.

Roughly when you want them on

Before Thanksgiving and the first week of December are the two common answers. Knowing which one you want is what lets us put you in the right week rather than a guess.

If you would rather stop doing this every year

Permanent outdoor lighting is a fixed track of individually controllable LEDs mounted under the eave. It runs $42 per linear foot, stays up year round, and disappears against the trim in daylight. It does more than Christmas as well, since the same track handles warm white for ordinary evenings and whatever colors you want for a holiday or a game.

It is a larger up front number than a season of Christmas lights and it is a different kind of decision. But if the yearly install and takedown is the part you are tired of, it is worth pricing alongside.

Getting on the calendar

Applewood Exterior Cleaning is based in Pomfret and installs across Northeast Connecticut, Worcester County in Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. Check your town on our service areas page, or read more about what is included on our Christmas light installation page.

Text a photo of the front of your house to (860) 553-9326 for a flat quote, or send the details through our contact page. Ask early and you get to pick your week.