Tips for Taking Down and Storing Lights

Tips for Taking Down and Storing Lights

Taking down your Christmas lights in the next couple of weeks?

Here are a few handy tips and tricks to keep in mind:

1. Practice good ladder safety. Have a second person on hand to help stabilize the ladder and move the ladder down your roofline just as often as you did when you were installing the lights.

2. Resist the temptation to tug on the lights to uninstall them more quickly. This is a recipe for damaging the wiring and is the best response 99% of the time to the statement:

"My lights were working fine last year and now they don't come on at all!"

3. Examine and test your lights before you store them away. What was working in installation might not work any longer. (See tip #2.) Make good use of your replacement bulbs for all mini light strings and replace any burned out bulbs before storing away for the season.

It's a lot of trouble but it's worth it.

See damaged insulation or exposed wiring? Discard your lights now and order replacements in January or save a list for October's light shopping.

4. Make an inventory of your lights as you take them down and mark them with a location so installation next year will be easy. This is especially important for lights cut to a custom length. Mark each string with a piece of masking or painters tape and use a sharpie to record where you had them installed.

If you don't have a Christmas light inventory already, use ours to keep track of what you are taking down, where to install them next year and where they are stored over the season.

Download the Christmas Lights Inventory Spreadsheet

Download the Christmas Lights Inventory in PDF format

Make a map of your lights as you take them down and take quick notes of what you loved this past Season and why.

5. Store you lights in water-tight and sealed containers. Moisture and critters are not your light's friends.

6. Don't store your lights in the attic. Extreme heat and cold will take a toll on your lights. Store lights in an interior closet space until next year.