LightCast by Macomb Power Washing Solutions
LightCast guides

Permanent lighting guides.

Plain answers about permanent roofline lighting on Macomb, Oakland and Grosse Pointe houses: what it costs per foot, how the channel mounts, which colors work, when the seasonal lease is the better call, and how Michigan winters treat it.

Newest guides

Design and color

4th of July permanent lights: red, white and blue

How to divide three colors along one roofline, keep the white from turning pink, and time the look for late July dusk and every other flag holiday. 8 min read Seasonal lease

Christmas light clips for shingles and gutters

Which clip belongs on which edge of your roof, what a Michigan November does to shingles and plastic, and how a leased C9 display goes up without a single hole. 8 min read Michigan homes

Christmas lights on a brick house

Brick ranches, brick-front colonials, tan brick and painted brick: where the lights actually attach, which white suits the wall, and what never to do to a mortar joint. 8 min read

Cost and planning

What permanent lighting costs per foot, how a house lands in the band, and how it stacks up against leasing.

Cost and planning

DIY permanent outdoor lights vs installed

Store kits promise the same year-round roofline for a weekend of work. Here is where they hold up, where they fall short on a Michigan house, and how to read the box before you buy. 8 min read Cost and planning

How to choose a permanent holiday lighting company

Six questions that separate a careful permanent lighting installer from a fast one, with what a good answer sounds like and what should make you pause. 8 min read Cost and planning

Permanent Christmas lights cost per foot

One real band instead of a national guess. What a lit foot is, why peaks, dormers and a second story push a house toward the top, and the full price table. 8 min read Cost and planning

Permanent Christmas lights electricity cost

Watts per foot, hours per night, price per kilowatt-hour. The method, DTE's published rates, and worked numbers for a 100 ft and a 200 ft Michigan roofline. 8 min read Cost and planning

Permanent lights on new construction homes

The install comes after the house is finished. The decisions that make it easy come months earlier, while the builder is still asking you to pick colors. 8 min read Cost and planning

Permanent lights on the front of the house only

The front elevation carries most of the look for a fraction of the footage. Here is when that is the right call, when it is not, and how to stop a run so it looks planned. 7 min read Cost and planning

Why are permanent Christmas lights so expensive?

A retail kit prices the parts. An installed system prices the parts plus everything a kit leaves on your side of the ladder. Here is where the $22–34 per lit foot actually goes. 8 min read

How it works

The channel, the LEDs, the controller and the mounting, explained from the ladder.

How it works

RGBW vs RGB permanent lights

How each kind of diode makes white, why a blended white can look off along a trim line, and how to judge the white on any lit house before you buy. 8 min read How it works

Can you see permanent Christmas lights during the day?

The daytime look, trim by trim: where the channel hides, how the color match works, what shows from the driveway that never shows from the street, and what to check first. 8 min read How it works

Do permanent Christmas lights damage your roof?

The roof is only at risk when an installer treats the shingles as a mounting surface. Here is what the shingle makers publish, and what to look for from your driveway. 8 min read How it works

How long do permanent Christmas lights last?

What an LED lifetime rating actually measures, how many Michigan winters those hours add up to, which part of the system gives out first, and what to ask before you pay once. 9 min read How it works

How permanent Christmas lights are installed

What actually happens to your house on install day, from the first cut in the channel to the moment the schedule is on your phone. 7 min read How it works

How permanent outdoor lights are powered

What plugs in where: the low-voltage power supply, the spots it can live on a Michigan house, why big rooflines get more than one feed, and the power questions to take to your electrician. 8 min read How it works

Permanent Christmas lights and roof replacement

The channel never goes through a shingle, so a new roof leaves it alone. The roof edge right above it is another story, and that is where the order of work matters. 8 min read How it works

Permanent eave lights: where they mount

Eave, rake, fascia, drip edge: a plain-English map of your roof edge, where a permanent channel actually sits on it, and what that means for the number of feet you light. 8 min read How it works

Smart roofline lights: app and schedules

The phone does five jobs. Set them up well in the first week and the lights run themselves, through clock changes and Michigan's short December evenings. 8 min read How it works

What are permanent Christmas lights?

A plain definition from the people who hang it: the parts, the many names for the same product, how it differs from seasonal strands, and which houses it suits. 8 min read

Design and color

Colors, schedules and effects for every month of the year, not only December.

Design and color

4th of July permanent lights: red, white and blue

How to divide three colors along one roofline, keep the white from turning pink, and time the look for late July dusk and every other flag holiday. 8 min read Design and color

Halloween permanent light ideas

Orange and purple is where everyone starts. Getting an orange that does not drift yellow, an effect that reads from the curb and a schedule that fits the night takes a little more thought. 8 min read Design and color

Permanent holiday light color ideas by month

One calendar for the whole year: which colors to program for each holiday, which effect suits it, and the dates to put on the schedule from this fall through next summer. 8 min read Design and color

Year-round exterior lighting ideas

Here is what permanent roofline lights do on the nights that are not holidays, from dark-by-five January evenings to June nights on the deck. 8 min read Design and color

Are permanent lights too bright? Glare and neighbors

Glare from a roofline is nearly always a settings problem. Here is how to set the level, the off time and the effects so the house looks good and the house next door stays dark. 8 min read Design and color

Diwali lights on your house

Gold and amber like a row of diyas, marigold and saffron accents, steady light over motion, and a night-by-night plan with Detroit dates and sunset times. 8 min read Design and color

Permanent Christmas light patterns for your roofline

Six Christmas looks that read well from the street, how node spacing and peaks shape every pattern, and a simple plan for the stretch from Christmas Eve to New Year's. 8 min read Design and color

Roofline lighting ideas: which lines to light

Main eave, gables, garage, dormers, porch roofs and bump-outs. Which edges outline a house at night, which ones clutter it, and how to test a layout on your own photo. 8 min read Design and color

Team color lights on your house, Detroit style

Red is easy. Honolulu blue takes some tuning, and silver has to be faked with white. Here is how each Detroit team's colors actually look in light, and how to put them on a schedule. 8 min read Design and color

Warm white vs cool white Christmas lights

Kelvin in plain words, and which white looks best on red brick, gray vinyl, fieldstone, black trim and a snow-covered Michigan yard. 8 min read

Michigan homes

Colonials, ranches, Tudors and lake houses, and what a Michigan winter does to roofline lighting.

Michigan homes

Christmas lights on a brick house

Brick ranches, brick-front colonials, tan brick and painted brick: where the lights actually attach, which white suits the wall, and what never to do to a mortar joint. 8 min read Michigan homes

Christmas lights on a Cape Cod house

A story-and-a-half Cape gives you a low eave, a steep roof face and a row of dormers. Here is which of those lines to light, how each one looks from the street, and what it costs. 9 min read Michigan homes

Christmas lights on a split-level house

Split-levels put two or three roofs at different heights across one front. Here is how to light each level, handle the step between them, and measure it all from one photo. 9 min read Michigan homes

HOA approval for permanent Christmas lights

A permanent fixture is an architectural request, not a holiday decoration. How to read your documents, build a request a committee can say yes to, and finish review before the install window. 8 min read Michigan homes

Permanent Christmas lights in cold Michigan winters

Detroit averages 45 inches of snow a season, and January highs sit right at freezing. Here is what that does at the roof edge, where permanent lights live, and a short check for after each storm. 8 min read Michigan homes

Permanent lights on older and historic homes

On an older house two questions come before color or price: does a local commission review this kind of work, and can the original trim hold a fastener for years? 9 min read Michigan homes

Roofline lights on a ranch house

A ranch gives you one long, low line and not much else. Here is how to make that line look deliberate, what changes between hip and gable roofs, and what 60 to 80 feet costs. 8 min read Michigan homes

Can permanent lights be installed on gutters?

The gutter is a moving, pitched, ice-filled trough. The board behind it is what holds a permanent channel, and whether it can depends on what that board is made of and how sound it is. 8 min read Michigan homes

Christmas lights on a metal roof

Metal panels move with the weather and can dump their snow in one slide. Both facts point the lights to the same place: the trim below the roof edge, never the panels. 8 min read Michigan homes

Permanent lights on a two-story colonial

Two eave lines, a front gable, a garage and a lot of ladder. Here is how a Macomb or Oakland County colonial gets lit, and what it costs. 8 min read

Seasonal lease

When a leased C9 display is the better call, and everything the lease covers.

Seasonal lease

Christmas light clips for shingles and gutters

Which clip belongs on which edge of your roof, what a Michigan November does to shingles and plastic, and how a leased C9 display goes up without a single hole. 8 min read Seasonal lease

Christmas lights when selling your house

Dusk photos, 5 pm sunsets, warm white over color, and evening showings. How a lit roofline fits a winter listing, and which calls belong to your listing agent. 9 min read Seasonal lease

Custom-cut C9 Christmas lights vs store strands

Why C9 lights cut from spool wire to every run of the roof look tidier than fixed-length strands, from socket spacing to where the connections hide on a multi-gable house. 8 min read Seasonal lease

Permanent Christmas lights cons and downsides

We install permanent roofline lighting and we lease seasonal C9 displays. Here is where the permanent option falls short, and how we decide which one to put on your house. 8 min read Seasonal lease

C7 vs C9 Christmas lights

What the numbers on the box actually measure, how each bulb looks from the curb, and why the roofline of a Michigan house almost always wants the bigger one. 8 min read Seasonal lease

C9 bulbs vs permanent LED lights

A side-by-side on looks alone: bulb size and glow, spacing, the view from the street, how each photographs, what shows by day, and which houses suit which. 8 min read Seasonal lease

Christmas lights with gutter guards

Your old gutter clips stopped fitting the day the guards went on. Here is where the lights can go instead, sorted by the kind of guard on your house. 8 min read Seasonal lease

How a Christmas light lease works

You rent the display, we own the lights. Every step of a season lease in the order it happens at your house, and what it costs from a small ranch to a big colonial. 8 min read Seasonal lease

Lit wreaths and garland outside your house

Wreath diameters for doors, gables and windows, garland on the door surround and porch rails, and planning how each piece gets its power. 9 min read

Using LightCast

Getting a good measurement from one photo with the LightCast tool.

Using LightCast

How many feet of Christmas lights do you need?

Tape the drip line, note the gables, and check the total against houses like yours. A ground-level way to get your footage before you buy lights or ask for a price. 9 min read Using LightCast

How to measure a roof peak for Christmas lights

The level eave was easy. The sloped edges climbing to each peak are longer than they look, and the steeper the roof, the more footage hides in them. 9 min read Using LightCast

Permanent Christmas lights estimate and quote online

You can have a real price range for permanent lights before anyone comes to the house. Here is what the online path asks of you, what it hands back and what happens next. 7 min read Using LightCast

Best photo for measuring your roofline

A phone photo can measure a roofline closely enough to price it if you take it the right way. Where to stand, which lens to use, what to use as a ruler, and what to do about the front-yard maple. 9 min read
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