12 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Holiday Lighting Company

Most people hire a Christmas light company once and then keep them for years, so the first call matters more than it looks. The difference between a good install and a bad one is not the bulbs. It is who owns the lights, how they get attached to your house, and who shows up when a run goes dark on December 18.

Here are 12 questions worth asking. None of them are trick questions. A company that does this for a living will answer all of them in a couple of minutes, on the phone, without getting cagey.

Questions about the company

1. How long have you been installing holiday lights?

Seasonal work attracts seasonal operators. Some crews are painters or landscapers filling a slow quarter, and they learn on your roof. Ask for the year they started rather than a vague claim about experience. Red Nose Lites has been hanging Christmas lights around Nashville since 2006, which is 20+ years of doing the same thing every winter.

2. Are your crews insured?

Short question, short answer. People are going up ladders on your property in cold weather, often on wet gutters. You want to hear yes without hesitation, and you want it to cover the people actually doing the work.

3. Is holiday lighting your main business or a sideline?

Related to the first question but not the same. A company that only does Christmas and holiday lighting has to be good at it, because there is nothing else to fall back on. It also means someone answers the phone in December, which is the part you will care about later. Red Nose Lites does holiday lighting only. No year round landscape lighting, no other trade in the background.

Questions about the lights

4. Who owns the lights?

Ask this early, because it changes every other answer. On a full service residential installation, the company owns the strands, cuts them for your house, hangs them, and takes them back at the end of the season. You are not buying a product. You are buying a lit house for a few weeks. If you own the strands instead, you also own storing them, testing them every fall and replacing the ones that died in a bin.

5. Where do the lights live in the off season?

Attics in Middle Tennessee get hot, and coiled strands do not enjoy a summer up there. Ask whether the company stores them or hands you a box in January. Red Nose Lites keeps the lights off season, so nothing takes up shelf space in your garage and nothing bakes until next November. The full season timeline is laid out on the how it works page.

6. Are the strands cut to my roofline?

This is the clearest visual difference between a professional job and a box store job. Retail strands come in fixed lengths, so you either finish ten feet short of the corner or you have a loop of leftover cord dangling off the end. Custom cut commercial grade LED strands are measured to your actual roof edge and terminated where the roof stops. From the street it reads as one straight line instead of a series of guesses.

7. What are you attaching them with?

The right answer is clips sized to your roof edge or gutter lip. The wrong answers are staples, nails and screws driven into fascia, trim or shingles. Those leave holes. Holes take water. Water finds the wood behind the fascia, and now your Christmas lights have turned into a spring repair bill. If a company shrugs at this question, that is your answer.

8. What happens on the second story and the steep pitch?

Plenty of houses in Green Hills, Belle Meade and Forest Hills have a two story front elevation, a steep pitch, or a gable that nobody is reaching from a step ladder. Say that out loud on the call and listen to how specific the answer gets. Vague answers about heights usually mean the crew plans to work it out on the day.

Questions about the season

9. What happens if a section goes dark?

Something will eventually. A squirrel, a wind event, a connector that worked loose in a freeze. What matters is the response, so ask both halves: how fast, and does it cost extra. Red Nose Lites carries a 24 hour service guarantee during the season, and in season maintenance is part of the install rather than a call out fee.

10. Who takes them down, and is that included?

Takedown is where cheap quotes get interesting. If removal is a separate line item, you tend to find out in January, when you have the least appetite for negotiating. On a full service install, design, installation, in season maintenance, takedown after the holidays and off season storage are all part of the same price.

11. Am I signing a multi year contract?

Some companies renew you automatically and treat cancellation as the exception. Ask plainly whether you are committing past this season. Red Nose Lites uses no contracts and no long term commitments, so changing the design next year, or skipping a year, is a phone call and nothing more.

12. Can you give me a price on this call?

Yes, and you should expect one. Call (615) 595-9686, describe the house, say which parts you want lit, and you can get a price on that call. If the property is large or unusual, or you simply want someone to walk it with you, a site visit is available. It is an option, not a requirement. You can also start on the get a quote page and pick the conversation up from there.

What you do not need to ask

You do not need to interrogate anyone about bulb technology. Commercial grade LED is the standard for this work and the useful question is whether the strands are cut for your roof, which is number 6, not what is inside the diode.

You also do not need a crew for every job. If the whole plan is a wreath on the door, a lit garland along a porch rail and two shrubs you can reach flat footed, do it yourself. That is a Saturday afternoon, not a service call. Hiring out starts to make sense when the work involves a second story, a steep pitch, long unbroken roof runs, or trees that need a ladder and a spotter.

How to use the list

Keep it simple on the call. Ask questions 4, 7 and 9 first. Ownership, attachment method and what happens when something breaks will separate most companies faster than anything else on the list. If those three answers are solid, the rest usually are too.

• Ownership: the company should own, cut, store and maintain the strands.
• Attachment: clips only, never staples, nails or screws into your roof.
• Service: a real turnaround time in season, with no extra fee attached.
• Commitment: one season at a time, in writing or not at all.

Red Nose Lites is family owned, works across Nashville, Brentwood, Franklin, Hendersonville, Gallatin, Belle Meade, Green Hills, 12 South, Sylvan Park, Hillwood, Forest Hills, Oak Hill and College Grove, plus Mount Juliet, Nolensville and Murfreesboro, and holds a 4.7 rating from 51 Google reviews. Run the list past us at (615) 595-9686 and get a price on the same call.