If something fails between Thanksgiving and January, this is what happens

What we mean by in-season maintenance

Once your lights go up in November, they are not finished being our responsibility. In-season maintenance is the promise that anything that goes wrong between install and takedown gets fixed without a second invoice.

This is not an add-on you have to ask for. It is built into the same seasonal service you already booked, running from the day the crew finishes the walkthrough through the January takedown.

It is also the piece of the service that is easiest to overlook when comparing a professional install to doing it yourself. A DIY display that fails on a Sunday in December stays dark until someone finds a ladder and a spare bulb. A serviced display gets a call scheduled instead.

Think of the install itself as the first day of a roughly six-week relationship with your display, not the end of one. The lighting is expected to look right every night in between, not just the night the crew drove away.

What actually gets covered

A bulb out is the most common call, and the most boring to fix, which is exactly the point. A single dead C9 does not need to sit there until January just because it feels like a small problem.

A section that dims or flickers rather than going fully dark is treated the same way as a total failure. It is easy to assume a flicker will resolve on its own, but it is worth reporting rather than waiting to see if it gets worse.

Wildlife is the other frequent culprit. A squirrel chewing through a wire running up a tree happens more often in Western PA yards than most homeowners expect, and it is treated the same as any other in-season repair, not billed separately.

Wind, ice and a line knocked loose from a gutter or fascia board all fall under the same coverage. The specific cause of the failure does not change how it gets handled.

Timer or app control issues get the same treatment as a physical repair. If a section will not respond from the app or a schedule stops triggering correctly, that is reported and resolved the same way a burned-out bulb would be.

A section that goes fully dark after a power outage is another common report, particularly after a storm strong enough to affect the neighborhood's power, not just your display specifically.

• Burned-out or failed bulbs
• Chewed or damaged wiring from wildlife
• Lines knocked loose by wind or ice
• Any connection issue affecting a section of the display

Why the 24 to 48 hour window exists

A dark section of roofline for two weeks is a different problem than one that gets fixed by the weekend. Responding within 24 to 48 hours keeps a small failure from turning into the thing your neighbors notice through Christmas.

That window also reflects reality. A crew is not standing by idle in the middle of December, so 24 to 48 hours is the honest turnaround for scheduling a repair around an active install calendar, not a padded estimate.

Most repairs land closer to the 24-hour end of that range once the calendar clears past the first two weeks of December. Early in the season, when installs are still stacking up, a repair can occasionally run closer to the full 48 hours.

How to report a problem

A call or text to Tyson at 724-859-4390 is the fastest way to get a repair scheduled. A quick photo of the affected section helps the crew show up with the right part on the first visit.

You do not need to diagnose the problem yourself. Whether it is one bulb or a full section that went dark after a storm, describing what you see is enough to get someone out to look at it.

There is no separate ticketing system or call center to navigate. The same person who handled your consultation and install is generally the one fielding the repair call, which tends to make the whole process faster.

If you are not sure whether something is even worth reporting, report it anyway. A quick text costs you nothing, and a small issue caught early is easier to fix than one that has been slowly getting worse for weeks.

What homeowners sometimes assume is not covered

A common assumption is that only manufacturer defects are covered, and that damage caused by weather or an animal is somehow the homeowner's problem. That is not how the coverage works. The cause of the failure does not change whether it is repaired at no charge during the season.

The one thing in-season maintenance does not cover is a full redesign requested mid-season, such as adding an entirely new section of roofline that was not part of the original install. That is treated as new work rather than a repair, and it is priced and scheduled separately.

That distinction rarely comes up in practice, since most mid-season calls are genuinely something that broke rather than a request for something new. When it is unclear which category a request falls into, it gets sorted out on the phone before anyone drives out.

Where this fits in the bigger picture

The full seasonal program runs design, install, in-season repair and takedown as one continuous service rather than four separate transactions. See thraxel.com/blog/what-white-glove-christmas-lighting-means/ for how those pieces connect.

Coverage ends when the season does. Takedowns start January 4 as weather allows, and that process is covered separately at thraxel.com/blog/christmas-light-takedown-january-schedule/. Until then, anything that fails gets fixed, no exceptions and no invoice.