Lighting up your home for the holidays may be fun, but it can also be hard work. Stringing decorative lights is a workout, and figuring out how to safely power them all can be a challenge. Fortunately, there are several ways you can make decorating easier this year, be it new technology, new techniques, or some upgrades you can make to your home. In this blog, we’ll take a closer look at a few of them.

Install Lights with an Extension Pole

Hanging lights along the soffits, eaves, or gutters along your roofline can brighten up your home and give it a sort of unique, festive beauty. However, hanging these lights can be extremely hard work. Some of the high points along your roofline might be 20 feet or more off the ground, and that means you’ll need to go up and down a ladder while putting yourself at risk of losing your balance.

However, there are ways you can avoid having to haul yourself up to great heights or venturing out onto your roof. Extension pole systems are a great way to do just that. These systems use an extending pole with a special hook to install plastic clips along your soffits or eaves. From there, you can then use that same pole to lift and clip your light strings directly into the clips you just mounted. And the best part is you can do all of it from the ground below, or at the very most with nothing more than a short extension ladder for those high points.

Power Lights with Outdoor Outlets

One big question with all holiday lighting: where is all of the power going to come from? You certainly want to avoid overloading one particular outlet or circuit, but if you don’t have any convenient outdoor outlet locations, you might be stuck doing just that. This is where having an electrician install some outdoor outlets can make a huge difference. With some conveniently-placed electrical runs, you’ll have all of the power you need to decorate your home in a safe and secure location right on your home’s exterior.

A skilled electrician can install one of these new outdoor outlets for you, and make sure that everything is done properly. Outdoor outlets need to adhere to stringent code standards and guidelines, and having a pro do the job is the best way to make sure your electrical supply is stable, safe, and capable of handling your electrical needs.

Use LED Lights for Fewer Burnouts & Energy Savings

Older holiday light strings might still rely on old incandescent bulbs. It’s time to get rid of those for good. Not only do those older decorations burn through way more energy than their modern LED counterparts, but they also have another frustrating issue—a severe lack of durability. Incandescent lightbulbs are notorious for burning out during setup, teardown, and storage, and in many cases, you may not know it until your lights are already hung up. Avoid the headache of having to change the bulb located at the very top of your soffit peak—switch to inexpensive LED bulbs and you’ll enjoy both better durability and increased lighting flexibility.

Time Lights Automatically with Smart Outlets & Switches

Finally, perhaps the only challenge harder than powering your lights is figuring out how to turn them on and off regularly without forgetting. It’s easy to forget to turn your lights on when you’re busy, so why not let your home turn your lights on for you? If your lights are switch operated, a smart switch can be set up to turn lights on and off at pre-determined times, and some models can even change the turn-on or turn-off time each day to coincide with sunset or sunrise.

If your lights are not connected to a switched outlet, you can still put them on a switch with the use of an automatic timer. Light timers are devices that turn on and off depending on the time of day. While there are timers that are designed for use in outdoor applications, timers don’t always offer the flexibility you might be looking for. If you really want to step up your holiday lighting, invest in some smart outlets. These devices use a Wi-Fi connection for programming and can be turned on and off with your smartphone as well as by a standard, pre-programmed timer. These outlets can often provide you with other statistics as well, including how much energy your lights have consumed so you can get a better idea of how much energy LED lights might be saving you!