Outdoor lighting guides
Practical advice for choosing, measuring and planning your lights. Start with the job you need to do.
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Buying
Best Permanent Christmas Eave Lights (2026)
Permanent eave light picks by job: renting, a long roofline, cost per foot, app effects and warm white, judged on length, pitch, IP rating and mounting.
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Buying
Black Friday Christmas Lights: What to Check First
Which holiday and permanent light kits exist, what to decide before the sales start, and how to check a listing so you buy the kit you meant to.
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Measuring
Is 100 ft of permanent lighting enough?
Work out whether a 100 ft kit covers your roofline, with three calculated examples and a checklist for gaps, power leads and spare length.
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Buying
Can permanent outdoor lights be cut or extended?
Check cuttable versus non-cuttable kits, extension limits and cable gaps before buying permanent lights for an awkward roofline.
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Installing
How far from the wall should permanent lights go?
Plan permanent-light placement under the eaves: wall distance, light spacing, surface changes and what to check before fixing the whole run.
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Buying
Permanent vs. seasonal lights: compare the real costs
Compare permanent and seasonal outdoor lights using your own installation, replacement and electricity costs, without assuming a payback date.
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Measuring
How to measure your roofline without getting on the roof
A tape, a helper and ten minutes on the driveway get you within a few feet. The only part that needs arithmetic is the gable, and it is one multiplication.
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Installing
How to plan a permanent eave light installation
Check the mounting surface, kit length, cable gaps and power location before installing permanent outdoor lights. A practical planning checklist.
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Choosing
Warm white or cool white: 2700K to 6500K on a house
Kelvin decides whether a roofline reads as a porch bulb or a security light. Most kits cannot reach both ends of it, and the spec line says which.
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Planning
How far apart should path lights go?
One every 6 to 8 ft down each side you want lit, one at each step. Here is what that turns into for a real walk, and why the pack sizes never quite match.
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Seasonal
C9, icicle or net lights: which shape to hang
Four seasonal shapes, four different jobs. What each one does on a house, how many strands a front actually takes, and what IP44 is not rated for.
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Seasonal
Can permanent outdoor lights do orange and purple?
Nineteen kits list the scheme and they do not draw it equally. Pitch sets how wide each band of colour is, and the flagship has the widest pitch here.
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Seasonal
Halloween lights when you are not going on the roof
Orange and purple from the ground: wall lights, solar spots, rope under a porch, a string over the pergola. What each lights, and what a 4-pack gives you.
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Seasonal
One strand for October and December
Two seasons, one purchase, one afternoon on the ladder. Which strands here can change colour, what the smart C9 gives up for it, and the two that cannot.
More are being written. Everything here is checked against the calculator before it goes up, so the arithmetic in an article and the arithmetic on the calculator page are the same arithmetic.