What Happens When a Strand Fails Mid Season?

It is the second week of December. You pull into the driveway and one run of the roofline is dark. The rest of the house looks fine, which somehow makes the gap look worse. Guests are coming Saturday.

Strands fail. It does not matter who hung them or what they cost. Lights spend six or seven weeks outside through rain, wind, cold snaps and the odd squirrel. What matters is what happens next, and who is responsible for fixing it. This post covers the common reasons lights go out, what you can check on your own without climbing anything, and how Christmas light repair works when Red Nose Lites installed the display.

Why lights go out in the middle of the season

Most failures are not the bulbs. They are the connections, the power, or something physical happening to the wire. Here are the usual suspects in Middle Tennessee.

Water in a connection

Nashville winters are wet more often than they are frozen. A steady rain, or a night of freezing drizzle followed by a thaw, can push water into a plug or socket that was not sealed or was sitting in a low spot. Water in a connection is the most common reason a whole section goes dark at once.

A tripped GFCI outlet

Outdoor outlets are usually GFCI protected. That is a good thing. When moisture gets somewhere it should not, the outlet cuts power to protect people. The result looks like a broken display, but often nothing is broken at all. One tripped outlet can take down everything plugged into it, and sometimes other outlets wired downstream of it, including ones in the garage.

Wind and ice

A strong front can pull a strand off a clip that was not properly seated, or work a plug loose over a few days of gusts. Ice adds weight to wires and to gutters. Lights on ridgelines and exposed gables take the most of it.

Animals

Squirrels chew wire. So do other critters that live in older trees near rooflines, which is a real consideration in leafy neighborhoods like Sylvan Park and Belle Meade. A chewed wire usually shows up as one run that stops partway along.

Cheap strands and overloaded runs

Retail light sets are built for a season or two. Push too many of them end to end on one plug and you ask the first plug in the chain to carry more than it should. That tends to show up as the whole run failing, or a plug that feels warm. If you see a melted or discolored plug, unplug it and replace it. Do not keep using it.

What you can safely check yourself

Some of this is honestly DIY territory, whether a company installed your lights or you did. None of it needs a ladder.

• Check the timer. Timers get bumped, reset by a power blip, or run on the wrong schedule after the clocks change. Make sure it is on and set to the right time.
• Reset the GFCI. Find the outdoor outlet feeding the display and press the reset button. If it will not reset, or trips again straight away, there is still moisture somewhere. Leave it off and let things dry, or call for help.
• Check other outlets on the same circuit. A tripped GFCI in the garage or a bathroom can kill an outdoor outlet that looks fine. Check the breaker panel too.
• Look at the ground level connections. Plugs sitting in a puddle or a flower bed are a common cause. Lift them off the ground if you can do it safely, but do not handle wet plugs while they are live.
• Walk the house and look up. A strand hanging loose off the gutter or a plug pulled apart by wind is easy to spot from the yard.

Where you should stop: anything on the roof, anything involving a ladder in wet or icy conditions, and anything where you would be handling connections in the rain. A dark roofline is annoying. A fall from a second story gutter is not worth it for a few weeks of lights.

How repair works when Red Nose Lites installed your lights

If we hung your display, you do not have to do any of the above except check that nobody unplugged the timer. In season maintenance is included in every install. You are not buying a set of lights and then left on your own with them.

The 24 hour service guarantee

Every install comes with a 24 hour service guarantee during the season. If something goes out, call us at (615) 595-9686 and tell us what you are seeing. That is what the guarantee is for. There is no separate service contract to buy and no extra repair plan to sign up for.

Why the install itself cuts down on failures

Repairs are easier when there are fewer of them. A few things about how we install help with that:

• Custom cut commercial grade LED strands. Strands are cut to fit your roofline instead of being a pile of retail sets plugged end to end. Fewer extra connections means fewer places for water to get in.
• Clips sized to the roof edge or gutter lip. Lights sit on clips that fit your gutter or shingle edge. We never use staples, nails or screws in fascia, trim or shingles. Properly seated clips hold better in wind, and nothing is punched through your house.
• Insured crews. The people working on your roof are insured. You are not the one climbing, and you are not hiring someone uncovered to do it.

Is professional service worth it just for repairs?

Not always. If you have a single story ranch with lights along the front gutter and a few shrubs wrapped, and you do not mind a stepladder, doing it yourself is fine. When a strand fails you swap it and move on. You do not need a company for that.

The math changes with the house. Two and three story homes, steep pitches, long ridgelines and big gables are where a mid season failure turns into a real problem. You cannot safely reach the fault, so it stays dark until someone who can shows up. The same goes for commercial buildings where a dark sign or storefront is visible to every customer. For those properties, having repair already covered is a big part of what you are paying for. Our residential installation and commercial installation pages cover what each type of job includes.

What happens after the season

Repairs are not the only part of the job that happens after install day. After the holidays, we take everything down and store it. You do not have lights coiled in the garage or the attic all year, and you do not have to test them in November to find out which ones survived. There are no contracts and no long term commitments, so you decide each year whether you want us back.

Getting a quote

We have been doing this in Nashville since 2006. You can get a price over the phone. Call (615) 595-9686, describe the house and what you want lit, and we can quote you on that call. If you would rather we see the property first, or it is large or unusual, a site visit is available, but it is not required. You can also use the quote form, or read how it works from first call to takedown.

We serve Nashville and the surrounding area, including Brentwood, Franklin, Hendersonville and Green Hills. If a strand goes dark in December, it should be our problem, not yours.