Home turf
Christmas lights in Kittanning and Armstrong County, from the crew that lives here
Our shop is in Kittanning, so Armstrong County is the shortest drive on the whole schedule. Ford City is ten minutes away, Freeport is under thirty, and every seasonal install in the county comes with a render, in-season repairs and a January takedown.
Why Armstrong County gets the first trucks every November
Thraxel is headquartered in Kittanning, the Armstrong County seat, on the east bank of the Allegheny River where Route 422 crosses toward Butler. That address matters to a seasonal lighting client. When a November morning breaks clear and dry, the crew loading the truck is already inside the county instead of fighting traffic up Route 28 out of Pittsburgh.
It also means we know the houses. We have hung lights on the brick and frame two-stories that climb the hill above the river, on the Ford City rows built for glass workers, and on farmhouses out along Route 85 where the nearest neighbor is a barn. The crews that did this work under the 160 Glow name are the same brothers with the same ladders.
The full seasonal program, from the render to the storage shelf, is laid out at thraxel.com/christmas/. This post is about what changes when the job is in our own county.
What Armstrong County houses ask for
Warm white C9 on the roofline is the request we hear most in Kittanning, Ford City and Worthington. The housing stock here is older than in the Pittsburgh suburbs, and a glass-look bulb on a 1920s porch roof simply matches the building. Multicolor still wins on plenty of streets, especially where the kids set the agenda, and we mix the two often: white on the eaves, color on the shrubs and the big spruce out front.
Steep lots are the other local signature. A lot of homes in the county sit on a hillside with a walk-out basement on one side and a second-story eave you cannot reach from the ground on the other. Our crews carry the ladders and standoffs for that. Homeowners should not.
Trees deserve their own line. Mature evergreens and maples in the river towns take wrapping well, and a single properly wrapped tree often does more for a property than another hundred feet of roofline. Our method is covered at thraxel.com/blog/christmas-tree-wrapping-techniques/.
Weather on the Allegheny during install season
November in Armstrong County is a coin flip. One week is 55 degrees and dry, the next brings a wet snow that sticks to every shingle. We install only when weather permits, because a crew on a wet roof is a liability and a strand hung during freezing rain does not stay where it was put. That policy is also why the dry November weekends fill first.
Wind is the quieter problem. The valley funnels gusts down the river, and a clip that holds fine in a sheltered yard will not hold on an exposed roofline above the water. We clip tighter and space closer on those houses, and we never drive a staple into anyone's trim.
December brings the ice. Every seasonal client is covered by in-season maintenance: if a run goes dark or a squirrel chews through a tree wire, we are back within 24 to 48 hours and the visit costs nothing.
How the season runs from mock-up to storage
It starts with a free consultation at your house, followed within 48 hours by a render of your actual property, not a stock photo of a similar one. You approve the design and we put you on the calendar.
Install day is loud on purpose. The crew we call the Elves shows up in costume with Christmas music playing, wears proper PPE, and finishes most homes in a single day. Anything that fails during the season is our problem, not yours.
Takedowns begin January 4 as weather allows. Every run comes down, gets labeled, packaged and stored at our shop through the summer, and goes back up the following November without a trip to your attic. That storage step is a big reason Kittanning families stay on the program year after year.
- Design and render mock-up within 48 hours of the consult
- Installation only in safe weather, most homes done in a day
- In-season repairs within 24 to 48 hours at no charge
- Takedown from January 4, then labeled off-season storage
Ford City, Freeport and the rest of the county route
Ford City is five miles downriver, about ten minutes from our door, and shares Kittanning's mix of brick rows and hillside homes. Freeport, where Buffalo Creek meets the Allegheny at the corner of Armstrong, Butler and Allegheny counties, is 18 miles and roughly a half hour. Both are on our shortest loops, which translates to faster service calls in December. Their pages are at thraxel.com/areas/ford-city/ and thraxel.com/areas/freeport/.
Past the boroughs, the route covers the townships along Route 422 and Route 28, out to Worthington, Dayton, Rural Valley and Elderton. A rural address gets the same render, the same repair window and the same January takedown as a house inside the borough.
When to book a Kittanning install
September. Installs begin as soon as the leaves are down in late October and the November calendar goes fast, with the sunny weekends gone first. Booking early also means your render is finished before the rush and nobody is scrambling the week before Thanksgiving.
If you are torn between seasonal lights and a permanent system, the honest comparison is at thraxel.com/blog/permanent-vs-seasonal-christmas-lights/. Either way, Tyson runs every Armstrong County quote personally. Reach him by call or text at 724-859-4390, or grab a date at thraxel.com/quote/.