Outdoor Christmas Light Dilemma

[Top Shelf]

So this is the first winter in our new house, and I decided to put up some Christmas lights.

One small problem though, the house is a 2-story with a bonus room over the garage. I would really like to put some lights around the windows of the bonus room, but the top of the window is a few feet too high to reach by hand once I am on the roof. See pic below.





Does anyone have any suggestions? I’ve heard that you can nail a board into the roof, then prop a step ladder up on the board, but not sure if there are other options? I can’t be the only one who has had issues getting lights up, anyone have any suggestions? Is there a special ladder you can rent or something?

I have a 20 foot extension ladder and a step ladder.

[return to the red]

Hire someone??

[RougeUnderoos]

I'm a real chicken and would never put a ladder on the roof. And wouldn't it hurt the roof, putting a couple holes in it like that?

Can you put them up on the inside of the window? Not really "outdoor Christmas lights" then, but it would look alright from the street.

[Bagor]

Wow! That's a tricky one. Personally I wouldn't touch that for the sake of a few lights.

Originally Posted by return to the red

Hire someone??

Seconded. And get a contract so he can't sue you when he falls.

[Nancy]

Like the man says, do it on the inside. Get the suction cups to hold them to the window.

[8 Ball]

I would just put lights along the eves where the garage is, and along the eves on the roof. I can only imagine how many people get hurt every year putting up Christmas lights.

[Nancy]

That reminds me... In pervious years, Costco had this cool extension pole thing for installing Chritmas lights that had special clips with a screw base... you could install lights on a 2nd floor eavestrough without requiring a ladder. I would have bought it but I don't have any eaves on the front of my house, only on the sides...

[Dan02]

As a roofer I would never recommend nailing a board to the roof in such a manner, however, painters/siders/stucco guys do it to new roofs all the time, as long as you fill the leftover holes with tar(blackjack at totem sells for a couple bucks a tube) you shouldn't really have any problems if it's a one off thing. If you're doing this every year though your shingles are gonna become a mess awfully fast and that might lead to problems down the road.

Looking at your roof because you have interlocking shingles what you can do is carefully "unlock" a couple of the shingles and lift up the shingle and nail your 2x4 under there. Then once you're done you can remove the 2x4 and carefully relock the shingles and the nail holes from the 2x4 will never be exposed. If you have a older roof or it is really cold it can be very easy to rip the shingles though so you need to be careful.

If you need a bit better directions let me know and i can try to get some pictures of the process step by step,