No gutters? No problem
Hanging Christmas lights is hard enough, but what happens if you don’t have handy gutters on the front of your house to hook them onto? We have good news: You can learn how to hang Christmas lights without gutters, and your results may be even better without them. Here’s how to hang Christmas lights without gutters, with several methods to try.
Follow these guidelines for hanging Christmas lights without your gutters successfully.
If you have sections of roof with and without gutters, you may want to use all-in-one clips instead. These universal clips are only slightly more expensive: They use either rotating clips to angle light brackets in whatever direction you need, or a combination of clip and hook for either scenario.
Attach the first clip to your shingles. String the lights into the bracket of the first clip, then move a couple of feet forward and place the second clip. Every few clips, you will need to reposition your ladder as you work across the rooftop.
Tuck the end safely around the last hook at your last string of lights. Try not to let it dangle if possible. Connect your lights to the extension cord, and make minor adjustments as needed.
Fascia boards run under many residential rooftops, often providing a base for gutters. If your shingles don’t allow you to attach lights, then attaching Christmas lights to fascia is an alternative. The secret is finding larger light clips designed to clamp onto fascia, which won’t harm the boards like screws or staples.
Install your first clip by pushing it onto the fascia board, ensuring the hook is facing outward. You can either place all your hooks at once, then move on to hanging the lights—or you can install a hook, then a light, then a hook, then a light, and so forth.
Certain homes don’t have shingles, gutters, or fascia to handle Christmas lights. One example is stucco houses without any readily accessible tiles. One solution that works for stucco homes is parrot clips, which help hang decorations on the edges of walls or rooftops where nothing else will work. They’re harder to find than shingle clips, but are the best non-damage solution in these cases.
If you have a metal roof or other metal surfaces near where you want to hang your Christmas lights, magnetic light clips can hold your lights securely in place. Simply attach the magnets to the metal surface, and then clip the lights onto the magnets. This method is quick, reliable, and doesn’t leave any marks or holes in your home's exterior.
A staple gun can be an effective tool for hanging Christmas lights, especially on wood surfaces like fascia boards or window frames. Be sure to use light-duty staples to avoid damaging the wiring. With the strand unplugged, carefully position the lights and staple the wire to the surface, ensuring not to puncture the insulation of the wires.
Permanent clips are a convenient option if you plan to hang Christmas lights year after year. Plus, they’re designed to blend into your home’s exterior when not in use. These clips can be attached to various surfaces, including shingles, garage corners, eaves, or siding. Once installed, they provide a sturdy and reusable solution for hanging your lights.
Our steps above will help you through hanging lights without gutters. But when you’re ready to tackle your big Christmas light project, we also suggest keeping these important tips in mind:
Plan for extra light string length: No matter what kind of lights you use, plan for more clips and more light length than you need. Extension cords can only cover so much.
Don’t string up lights in bad weather: Don’t put up lights in rainy or windy conditions. They’re harder to set up, your ladder can get slippery, and it’s dangerous.
Don’t force clips under shingles: If a clip isn’t sliding under your shingle, stop immediately. You don’t want to damage shingles or the underlayment which could lead to leaks. Look for a nearby shingle that you can fit the clip under. If your shingles don’t have that kind of space, use a fascia clip or one of our other options from above.
Avoid adhesive and plastic ties: Some non-gutter methods use adhesive to attach hooks or plastic ties to hold lights in place. Adhesive can mark up your home’s exterior and be difficult to remove, while plastic ties create lots of extra waste and work each year.
Never use chairs or step stools to hang lights outdoors: They won’t reach high enough and create too many safety risks.
Examine your roof as you go: This is a perfect time to look for signs of roof storm damage, building algae, vent damage, rusted flashing, and other roof problems you may not have noticed from ground level.
While it’s possible to add your own Christmas lights to your roof, it's best to hire a local Christmas light installer to hang lights, especially as a seasonal service. Costs for roof installation vary based on home size, number of stories, and light type, ranging from $150 to $1,200 due to safety risks. This cost only covers roof lighting, not other outdoor Christmas light installations.
Gutter-free light hanging can be cost-effective when using reusable attachments, with larger, durable outdoor clips costing between $25 and $50 for a package of 50 to 100. You might also consider budgeting for the cost of hiring a Christmas light installer, with an average cost of $430, depending on the number of lights and complexity of the installation.
In the Christmas days of yore, people braved winter weather to staple or tack their Christmas lights onto their rooftops or nearby surfaces like the fascia boards. Problems quickly emerged with that approach. Damage to the roof, even small marks from staples, provides entryways for moisture and similar issues that can hasten roof rot, wear, and associated leaks. Plus, some homes had tough fiber cement boards or other materials where staples and screws didn’t work.
Gutter covers are drains that help keep leaves and needles from piling up in your gutters, an important feature for homes near tall trees. However, most gutter covers and guards will cover your gutters completely and prevent you from using traditional gutter clips for your Christmas lights.
Fortunately, our steps above should be the ideal solution for bypassing gutter covers and getting your lights where you want them. You can also find wire hooks made to insert into gutter cover holes if you prefer this method. Use this opportunity to brush off the top of your gutter covers if you haven’t done so this season.
If your lights are shorting out during rain storms or other winter events, you should probably replace them. These shorts indicate electrical issues that could cause serious hazards. Look for outdoor-rated lights with connectors made for rainy conditions to replace them. But if your Christmas lights are new and you want further protection, you can find weatherproof covers to add to the male-end connectors of your Christmas light strings. These can minimize the risk of shorts.
Heavy amounts of snow could be a problem. In many climates, lots of snow on your rooftop can lead to freeze-thaw cycle that create ice dams, which can damage rooftops. But if you’re using shingle clips, this snow poses an additional problem: As it melts and freezes, it can easily dislodge clips you’ve placed on your roof.
You can clean snow off your roof after a fresh snowfall while it’s still lightweight, but brushing off snow can also dislodge your clips. If you get a lot of snow, then roof clips become less viable.
No one has figured out a perfect solution to this problem. Tying icicle lights down or adding weights to them can help, but it’s a very time-consuming process and far from foolproof. If your winters are too windy, we suggest simply switching away from icicle lights to straight runs of non-dangling lights along the edge of your roof.
