How I hang Christmas lights without a ladder
imgur.com
imgur.com
In the US, there is a substantial probability the flashing is non-magnetic aluminum.
So test first.
It’s old houses that might have steel.
If you have a new house, I guarantee this won’t work. If you have an old house it’s worth checking, though.
Most likely the roofing people replaced with like material where possible. That’s a fairly common choice on old homes, unless the old material is unsafe, not good, or impossible to source.
Double hung sash windows are especially popular in this era because they are designed to maximize airflow. You’d open the bottom sash’s on the cool side of the house to let cooler air in and open the top sash’s on the other side to let hot air out. This also creates an airflow across the home.
Heck, even the mirror in the bathroom opens and closes perfectly and it’s 110 yrs old.
The downsides are there was zero insulation in the walls when we bought it and the leaded glass windows are single pane. I’ve mostly fixed the insulation problem but the windows will always be pretty to look at but inefficient.
To be fair, "nothing" is like, the best thing you'll find when you look at the insulation in old houses.
As you're likely aware, American Craftsman is an architectural style inspired by the Arts and Crafts Movement.[1] In an historical double entendre, "Craftsman" can mean something else entirely, and yet can still be American Craftsman, as this home is. These particular style American Craftsman home in particular, among the many types of American Craftsman, with the front covered porch on the short end of the rectangular shape, were sold out of the Sears Catalog.[2] Sears Craftsman... get it? Sears sold various architectural styles, such as Cape Cod, but I think far and away the most popular was their American Craftsman home kits, which the OP's home appears to be. Not all Sears kit homes were American Craftsman, and not all American Craftsman homes are Sears kit homes. But a lot of them are both.
For gutters that magnets won't stick to it might work to use pairs of magnets.
1. Drop a strong magnet into the gutter.
2. Place another strong magnet on the bottom of the gutter under the place you dropped the aforementioned magnet.
3. Attach a ferromagnetic metal clip to the thing you want to suspend and use the magnet from #2 to hold the clip.
Unfortunately, I can only hang my lights around the facade made of plaster (stipple), brick and wood. I don't want to tarnish the facade with hooks or nails and want a solution that can be reattached each holiday season without effort. I tried positioning the bulbs with removable clay/putty, hot glue but none of these temporary adhesives worked well.
The solution I settled on involves driving (permanent but relatively inconspicuous) threaded inserts into the facade at wide spanned intervals - tee-nut inserts [1] for wood and molly bolts for stipple/plaster surfaces [2]. I ordered aluminum bars ($1 per foot on Grainger) that will screw into these inserts during the season. These bars will let me use shingle clips to hold the light bulbs in the desired fixed span and orientation. For Halloween, I can attach led light strips to the bars to give more custom lighting effects.
[1] https://www.mcmaster.com/tee-nut-inserts/ [2] https://www.mcmaster.com/molly-bolts/
Install those permanently and when they’re not on they’re basically invisible.
Eaten by squirrels... Tube gets full of water... As soon as one LED dies, all the rest start flickering like crazy....
It means any one LED can die, and the rest still work correctly.
If two LED's next to one another die, then the whole strip still fails, but obviously the chances of that are far lower.
When looking at them, each addressable LED has 6 pins not 4 if it's the redundant data feed type.
Was probably your neighbor who ratted you out. I’m constantly reporting violations to our HOA
The solar type seem to only last a year or two, but really nice for wrapping far away bushes and such.
Well, looks like both permanent and seasonal professional installs are happening.
https://tulsaworld.com/lifestyles/home-and-garden/merry-and-...
There is a product idea there, both full on magnetic light sets. But also simpler magnetic clips for use on any lights.
In North Texas a guy who broke his leg went in for routine surgery to fix him up, his oxygen dropped and he is now brain dead and was the sole provider for his aging Mother - malpractice suit awarded but she is caring for him the rest of their days because "he is my everything" (loose translation from Spanish).
Is this wiring upto code in the U.S?
Also, the comment at the end to use "hooks" beats the whole point of using magnets.
If this was me, I would've threaded the lights through the big triangle piece directly and attached with zip ties, instead of modifying the cord.
> Also, the comment at the end to use "hooks" beats the whole point of using magnets.
Installing a nondescript hook up there would be a one-time use of a ladder which could just be borrowed or rented from somewhere. Future decorations can be done with just the extending pole and magnetic attachment.
Having said that, OP's lights are built a bit more solid because they look like the 120V parallel-wired style, rather than the series wired tiny lights. I'd be completely comfortable splitting the two conductors down the middle like that. That's exactly what you do to terminate a wire, although doing it in the middle of a cable is trickier because you need to be more accurate. Start the split with a sharp knife at one point, then you should be able to just pull the conductors apart.
For the general idea, I love it and it has me wondering if my gutters are steel. Although part of me wants to permanently hang WS2812 strips and be decorated for every holiday.
I remember https://i.imgur.com/vKbfzEs.jpg from my childhood. Small metal clips to attach real candles to the Christmas tree. 20-50 open flame candles on a dried out Spruce, one of the best fire starters possible.
(I have no idea how common it is, but I've seen the candles and brackets for sale.)
You must observe some safety rules, have a bucket of water or an extinguisher at hand (not under the tree) and never leave the candles unattended. And yes, be careful where you place the candles. Can’t have a branch that’s hanging over them.
But yeah it’s an awful idea. People YOLOd more back in the day.
I think a lot of christmas lights come with unpolarized plugs to make this more challenging. Also the tiny (3amp?) built-in fuses give you an extra level of protection beyond what you'd get with a simple extension cord of similar specs.
I have a bunch of ESP-01 LED controllers, I'm totally gonna do that now. Just gotta figure out how to weatherproof it.
Are they rusting?
If not, probably not. [1]
[1] To coma, stainless steel is not magnetic.
Gutters are usually aluminum because gutters and downspouts are a specialized trade and those businesses fabricate components on-site from aluminum roll stock to correctly fit the building.
The gutters have seams and weren't formed on site, but are also non-ferromagnetic. So much for the hope of quick and easy mounting.
If I had to guess - while galvanized steel wouldn't rust on its own, it's avoided due to the possibility of being in contact with other metals that would cause it to still rust. Roofing nails are galvanized, but they're supposed to be dry under the shingles.
IIRC because they're designed to chain but not for high power applications, Christmas cords are one of the few extensions which routinely include a fuse[0], usually 2.5 to 5 amps.
So you can plug a space heater at the end of the string, not much should happen.
As opposed to using a 15A extension to plug a 20A device into a 20A circuit, which you can absolutely do, and which will burn your house down.
[0] in the US, as opposed to the UK where everything includes a fuse because ring circuit baby
Of course, manufactured items aren't actually regulated under the NEC, but rather UL/ETL or another NRTL. Which is why you run your nice 10gauge wire for a dryer, then at the junction panel inside it switches over to 14 ga stranded or whatever. They've done the math with power dissipation, higher temp insulation, etc etc. And if it burns down your house you get to sue the manufacturer.
As an aside, it's a travesty that public.resource.org no longer has the building codes available. If the codes are not available for all to read, they cannot be considered binding law.
Every string I've seen in the past 30 years or so is fused.
Of course this all will increase pole-related accidents...
I really don't get the lack of calling this out. I'm ok with a little fudging with outdoor lights but this here doesn't make sense.
Don't worry. The internet virtue point demerits from playing with electricity are cancelled out by the ones you earn from avoiding ladder usage.