The most common call we turn down is somebody asking us to hang lights they already bought. Here is the honest reasoning, because it is a fair question and it deserves a real answer rather than a policy.
Consumer strands are engineered to a shelf price. That is not a criticism of the people who make them, it is simply what the product is for. They are sold in fixed lengths, on thin wire, with sealed connections that are adequate for a few weeks indoors and marginal outdoors in an Indiana January. The failure is rarely dramatic. A section dims, a run goes dark after a freeze and thaw, a clip lets go in wind and the line sags.
None of that is a problem in October. All of it is a problem on the third weekend in December, which is exactly when nobody wants to be on a ladder and nobody can get an installer out.
Our lights are rated for continuous outdoor use through a full winter. They arrive as bulk runs rather than boxed lengths, which is what allows us to cut them to your roof rather than fitting your roof to them. The connections are made for repeated seasonal use, the clips are commercial hardware rather than plastic gutter hooks, and the whole run is designed to be serviced rather than replaced.
This is the part that sounds like a sales position and is not. If we hang lights somebody else sold you, we have put our name on a display we cannot warranty, cannot service properly and cannot predict. When a strand fails in December, the honest answer would be that the materials are not ours and the fix is a replacement you have to go and buy. That is a worse experience than declining the job in the first place, and it is why the answer is no.
The same reasoning rules out labor only installation and rules out selling our lighting as a product for you to put up yourself. The service promise and the ownership of the materials are the same commitment described two ways.
An all inclusive install looks more expensive on day one than a box of strands and a Saturday. Over three seasons the comparison changes, because the all inclusive number includes the lights, the design, the labor, every service call, the takedown, and the storage that stops the materials degrading between seasons. Nothing is replaced because nothing is left in a hot garage for eleven months.
Installs start at $799, most full displays run $1,800 and up, and the number you are quoted is the number, including everything above.
Permanent architectural lighting is a real category and there is good product in it. There is also a great deal of inexpensive product being sold direct to homeowners, and a large share of the permanent lighting inquiries we receive are requests to install something already bought. The same reasoning applies, for the same reason. If permanent lighting is what you are after, call and talk to us about it directly rather than buying first.
A display measured and cut to your property. A rendering to approve before anything is ordered. Installation by the people who will also service it. A guaranteed 36 hour* response for the entire season. Takedown in January and storage until next year. One number, quoted before we start.
Call and describe what you had in mind. We will tell you honestly either way.
Call or text and get a real answer from the people who would do the work. No script, no obligation, no charge for the estimate.
