The full guide
What a professional Christmas light installation actually includes
Hiring a Christmas lighting company should mean you never touch a ladder, a staple gun or a tangled bin again. Here is the whole process, from the first measurement to the labeled tote in storage, as we run it across Western Pennsylvania.
The four parts of a real install
A professional Christmas light installation is a season-long service, not a one-day hang. It has four parts: a design with a mock-up of your house, an install by a trained crew, free repairs any time something fails in December, and a takedown with labeled storage in January. If a company only offers the middle part, you are paying for labor, not a service.
That distinction matters in Western PA because our winters do not cooperate. Ice on the gutters, wind off the river, a squirrel with a taste for wire. The value is in who shows up when a strand goes dark on December 20, and how fast. Our program is laid out at thraxel.com/christmas/ and the rest of this guide walks through each stage.
Stage one: design and the render
Everything starts with a free on-site consultation. Tyson walks the property, measures the roofline, looks at the trees, columns, railings and the outlets that will feed the display, and asks what you want the house to feel like in December. Classic warm white on a brick colonial is a different job than a multicolor display for a house full of kids.
Within 48 hours you get a render of your actual house with the lights drawn on it. Not a template, not a stock photo of somebody else's home. You see the bulb style, the color and which lines get traced before anything is ordered. Changes at this stage cost nothing, which is the whole point of doing it on a screen instead of on a ladder.
The render also settles the small arguments. Do the dormers get lit or just the main eave? Does the garage match the house? Is the maple in the front yard a wrap or a skip? Once you approve it, the crew builds from that drawing.
Stage two: install day
Our install crews are called the Elves, and yes, they show up in costume with Christmas music playing. Under the costume is a certified installer in proper PPE who hangs lights for a living. The music is for you and the neighbors. The harness and the rated ladders are for them. We only install when the weather allows it, because a wet roof in November is not worth anybody's ankle.
Lights go on with clips designed for shingles, gutters and fascia. Nothing is stapled, nailed or screwed into your trim. Runs are planned so that plugs land at outlets, cords stay out of walkways, and the load on each circuit stays inside what the wire and the outlet are rated for. Most residential installs finish in a single visit.
Before the crew leaves, everything is lit and checked from the street. Timers are set, and you get shown how the display turns on and off so you are not standing in the yard in a coat at 5 p.m. wondering why nothing happened.
- Certified crew in PPE, fully insured, UL, ETL and CUL certified components
- Clips only, no staples or fasteners into the house
- Installed only when weather permits
- Lit, tested and timer-set before the truck pulls away
Stage three: the December promise
This is the stage that separates a service from a hang. Any problem during the season, we are back at the house within 24 to 48 hours and everything is covered at no charge. A bulb out, a strand that went dark, a wire on the tree that a squirrel decided to chew through. It does not matter what caused it.
Homeowners who have done their own lights know the alternative: standing on frozen ground on a weeknight, tracing a dead run back to a bad socket, with company arriving Saturday. Our crews do that work with the right tools, spare product on the truck, and no drama. You text Tyson, the truck comes, the lights are back on.
That promise is why we control the product we install. Commercial-grade LED strands and socket wire fail far less often than store kits, and when they do, we have the exact replacement in stock instead of hunting for a match in a picked-over aisle.
Stage four: takedown and storage
Takedowns begin January 4 as weather permits. The crew removes every strand, wreath and clip, labels each run by where it hung on the house, and packages it for off-season storage. Your garage stays empty. The lights sit in dry storage until the next season, ready to go back to the same spots.
Because the layout is documented, year two goes faster than year one. The crew already knows the run lengths, the clip counts and which outlet feeds the front peak. That is one reason returning customers tend to get their preferred dates: the job is already mapped. More on the January side of the calendar is at thraxel.com/blog/christmas-light-takedown-and-storage/.
What it costs and when to book
We do not publish Thraxel prices because a ranch with 80 feet of eave and a three-story Victorian with six peaks are not the same job. What we can tell you is that national industry estimates commonly fall between roughly $2 and $6 per linear foot for professional seasonal install, or roughly $500 to $2,500 and up for a typical home per season. Actual pricing tracks the roofline in front of us, which is exactly why the quote costs nothing.
Timing matters more than most people expect. The good November weekends book first, and taller homes with bigger displays need the longer daylight windows early in the month. Homeowners on our daily route through the 16xxx ZIP codes, from thraxel.com/areas/kittanning/ out through Butler and Indiana counties, get scheduled first because the truck is already passing by.
To start, request a quote at thraxel.com/quote/ or send Tyson a text at 724-859-4390 with your address and a rough idea of what you want lit. He will schedule the walk-through and the render comes back within two days.
