How do I light a 2000-foot fence?

Lighting a long fence

Chad from Idaho writes:

I'm looking to run about 2000 feet of lights on a fence and im wondering if thats possible and how i can order them? you site mentions 1000' rolls, but i dont see them available to purchase? i do have power at each end.

Hi Chad,

You've asked a great question and the answer is probably longer than you expect.

What we carry in 1000-foot spools for C7 and C9 individually installed bulbs is manufactured with 18 AWG wire.

18 AWG wire cannot be run more than 250 feet in a single circuit so you'll have to run several extension cords and splitters for your installation.

For 2000 feet of lights, that would be 8 different sections. Unless you have power in the middle of the fence, this may not be electrically feasibly.

See these spools here under the C7 and C9 cords. Be sure to order gilbert plugs and LED bulbs if you go this route.

You can also see C7 and C9 cords in the pulldown menu under C7/C9 Bulbs and Cords at the top of the page.

As an alternative, I suggest you consider LED light strings with 3-wire harnesses that are ultra low current and can be run 100's of feet in a single series run.

For instance, in our mutli c7 light string, it is approximately 16.5 feet long and can be run 87 sets in series. You could run 61 sets from one end of the fence and another 61 sets from the other for a total of 2013 feet. I'd also consider purchasing more light depending (perhaps 10% more) depending on how much "swag" you want in the lines or if you are going to install them in a straight line with little to no dip a few extra sets might be sufficient.

(Since I don't have a photo of your fence line, it's hard to give exact suggestions there.)

These are the C7 strings:

You might also consider running light strings with smaller lenses. The 5mm lenses throw an amazing amount of light for such a small bulb and with either 6 or 4-inch spacing might be a good choice.

You can see those lights here:

Let's look at the pure white 5mm lights as an example. They have 6 inches of wire between bulbs so they cover a little more ground per light string.

These lights can be run up to 43 sets in series for a distance of 1074 feet in a single run since they have a length of approximately 25 feet.

For mounting the lights, consider the surface mount clips as an option.

You can find them here:

Hope that sends you in the right direction.