Lighting a brick house: roofline options that leave the brick alone
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.
The short answer: light the roofline, not the brick
The way to put Christmas lights on a brick house is to leave the brick out of it. Every brick house still has a roof edge: fascia board, drip edge, gutter and shingle. That edge is where a fastener or a clip belongs. The lights go there. The wall below stays exactly as the mason left it.
There are two ways to do that, and both skip the masonry entirely:
- Permanent roofline lighting. RGBW LEDs in a slim aluminum channel ride on the fascia or sit just below the drip edge's lip. Its fasteners suit the trim material, and none pierce a shingle. It stays up all year and runs from your phone.
- A seasonal C9 lease. We own the bulbs, custom-cut the runs to your roofline, hang them in November with clips that protect the shingles and gutters, and take everything down in January. No staples and no nails, on the roof or on the wall.
There is a design reason too. At night the eye reads a house by its outline, and a lit roof edge draws the whole shape, peaks and all.
Shallow eaves on brick ranches
The brick ranch is a familiar sight in the older subdivisions of Macomb and southern Oakland County. In Sterling Heights and Shelby Township a ranch front runs 60 to 80 feet of roofline. Many of them share a detail that worries owners: the brick climbs almost to the roof, and the overhang above it is only a few inches deep.
A shallow eave does not stop a permanent channel, since the channel never relied on the brick. What it needs is the fascia, the board that caps the ends of the rafters, or the lip of the drip edge above it. Even a stubby eave almost always has one or the other, and we confirm which on site. On a ranch where the gutter covers most of a narrow fascia, the underside of the drip edge is often the cleaner line. We pick that edge by edge at the house.
The shallow eave matters more in daylight than at night. On a narrow fascia, mounting under the drip edge tucks the channel up against the shingle line, where it reads as part of the roof edge rather than a strip across the board. Hip roofs, gable roofs and the attached garage are covered in our guide to permanent lights on a ranch house.
That eave also protects the wall. The Brick Industry Association notes that brick veneer houses are often designed with overhangs, eaves and gutters to help shield the wall from wind-driven rain. Anything you hang up there should leave the gutter seated and the drip edge flat, so that shield keeps working.
Brick fronts with siding above
Many two-story colonials in Troy, Rochester Hills and Sterling Heights wear brick on the first floor and vinyl or aluminum siding on the second. Front rooflines on Troy colonials run roughly 120 to 180 feet. On these houses the main eave sits at the top of the siding story, well above the brick.
The brick shows up at the roofline in only a few places, and each one has a trim board to work with:
- The garage roof. On many colonials the garage is one story, with brick running up to a short eave. That short eave gets lit just like a ranch eave, from its own trim board.
- The porch or entry roof. A small shed roof over the front door often sits on brick piers. Its fascia is part of the outline and is easy to include.
- Bay and box windows. A little roof over a bay in the brick has its own edge.
On a brick-and-siding front, see our comparison of warm and cool white for rooflines, which settles which material should decide.
Red, tan and painted brick
Roofline lights wash down the top of the wall, so the brick becomes the backdrop for every color you choose. Warm white suits most brick because brick sits in the red, orange and tan range. Painted brick behaves like painted siding. With RGBW lights the white is adjustable from the app, so you can compare on your own house before settling.
| Brick | White that usually reads best | What to watch |
|---|---|---|
| Red, orange, tan or buff brick | Warm white | Step slightly cooler on pale brick if it drifts yellow. |
| Dark or mixed-blend brick | Warm white, a little brighter | Dark brick absorbs more light, so the glow on the wall looks weaker. |
| Brick painted white | Either, by taste | Warm reads ivory and soft. Cool reads crisp and bright. |
| Brick painted gray, navy or black | Neutral or cool white | Warm white can drift beige on gray paint. |
Color is where the full RGBW fixture earns its place on a brick house. Red and green on red brick can look heavy, since the wall is already red, so a pattern with more white between the colors usually reads better. Our guide to Christmas color patterns for permanent lights has options.
Seasonal clips on a brick house
If you want the big-bulb C9 look for December only, the lease works on brick the same way it works on vinyl, because it attaches to the same roof edge. Gutter clips hook the front lip of the gutter along the eaves. Shingle clips grip the shingle edge along the gable rakes, where there is no gutter. The wall gets nothing. Our guide to clips for shingles and gutters explains which clip belongs on which edge.
Three details to plan on a brick house:
- The cord route. The run has to reach an outlet, and on a brick house the tempting shortcut is a clip nailed into a mortar joint on the way down. Plan the drop along a downspout, a trim board or a corner instead.
- Wreaths and garland. Lit wreaths and garland can be added to a leased design. On brick, hang them from the door trim, window trim and railings, not from hooks in the wall.
- The minimum. Leasing costs $18–32 a foot each season, with a minimum of $595. A full brick ranch front clears that easily. Lighting only the garage eave may not.
What not to do to mortar
Many brick houses, ranches and colonials included, are brick veneer: a single layer of brick tied to a wood-framed wall. The Brick Industry Association's guidance calls for an air space of at least an inch behind the brick. The Association describes it as a drainage wall. Water that gets through the brick runs down the back and leaves through flashing and weep openings near the bottom. The mortar joints are part of how that wall sheds weather, which is why they deserve care.
The National Park Service's guide to repointing explains that mortar is meant to be softer than the brick and to act as the sacrificial part of the wall, the part that wears and gets repaired so the brick does not have to. That makes joints the right place for a fastener when one truly must go into masonry. It does not make holes in them harmless. Here is what we would not do, on our work or yours:
- Do not nail clips into mortar joints. The Brick Industry Association's note on fasteners says masonry nails belong in the joints rather than the brick, and warns that nails can open small cracks in the joints that let water into the wall. In a Michigan winter, water in a crack freezes and widens it.
- Do not drill brick faces for decorations. A hole in a brick is permanent. A hole in a joint can at least be repointed later.
- Do not leave bare steel on the wall. The same note calls corrosion a major concern for exposed fasteners and recommends galvanized steel at minimum. Rust runs down brick and stains it.
- Do not patch with anything handy. The Park Service warns that mortar harder or less permeable than the brick can trap moisture and damage the brick face. Old holes are a small repointing job for a mason, not a spot for leftover caulk.
- Do not block the weeps. The small open joints or tubes along the bottom course let the wall drain. Keep cords, clips and decorations clear of them.
Measuring and pricing a brick house
Brick changes nothing about the math. A permanent install runs $22–34 per lit foot as a single payment, and the house's peaks, dormers and height decide where in that band it lands. Here is what common brick-house rooflines come to, beside the seasonal lease on the same footage.
| Front roofline | Typical brick house | Permanent, installed once | Seasonal C9 lease, per year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 80 ft | Compact brick ranch | $1,800–$2,700 | $1,400–$2,600 |
| 100 ft | Smaller brick two-story | $2,200–$3,400 | $1,800–$3,200 |
| 120 ft | Brick-front colonial | $2,600–$4,100 | $2,200–$3,800 |
| 150 ft | Colonial with front gable and garage | $3,300–$5,100 | $2,700–$4,800 |
| 180 ft | Wide colonial with side-entry garage | $4,000–$6,100 | $3,200–$5,800 |
For your own figure, cross the street and take one straight-on photo with the whole house in frame. Open the LightCast measuring tool, load it, and tap a known size, such as a 16 foot double garage door. The tool finds the roof edge, counts peaks and valleys, and gives both prices from one measurement, all inside your browser. Happy with the range? Ask for your estimate, and expect a reply inside 24 hours. Every edge is measured on site before an order goes in, so you will know which boards carry the lights, and that none of them is brick.
Questions about this
My brick ranch has almost no overhang. Can it still have permanent lights?
Usually, yes. The channel attaches at the roof edge, on the fascia or just below the drip edge's lip, never to the wall, and even a very shallow eave normally has one of the two. We confirm the mounting edge on site before anything is ordered. If the seasonal lease suits the house better, we say so.
Will roofline lights make my red brick look orange?
Warm white deepens red brick rather than turning it orange, because the wall reflects the red and amber in the light. If you want it less amber, RGBW lights let you step the white cooler from the app and judge it from the street after dark.
Where does the power cord go on a brick house?
The wire has to come down from the eave to power near an outlet, and on brick the route matters because nobody wants a cord pinned to mortar. Good routes follow the garage, a downspout, a corner or trim. The spot for the power supply and the path of the wire are settled at the house, and outlet questions go to your electrician.
Where this applies
Typical roofline lengths and priced examples for these communities are on their own pages.