Collister sits on the older ground between State Street and the foothills bench, a mix of mid-century ranch stock and canal-side lots with mature trees that have had sixty years to grow over the rooflines. Straightforward rooflines, complicated gutters — that is the short version of lighting this neighborhood.
Most of Collister is single-story ranch on a shallow pitch with modest eaves, which makes for a fast, clean install: one main run across the front, a garage return, rarely anything above standard ladder reach. What slows it down is what the gutter has become. Runs hung when these houses were built have picked up six decades of scale and grit, and in places the hangers have backed out enough that the lip will not carry a wet strand through a hard freeze. Where the gutter is tired we clip to the shingle edge instead of loading a run that is already struggling to drain.
The older lots toward the canal carry real canopy, and unlike the newer subdivisions north of here the leaf and seed load is genuine rather than roof grit. By late October the front troughs are carrying a packed mix, and a light run clipped over that sits in standing water once things freeze. It is also worth knowing that rust streaking on the fascia below a seam means water has been overflowing rather than draining — we will point it out if we see it rather than hanging a strand over the top and saying nothing.
Every attachment point is a plastic clip; we do not staple, nail or glue anything to your house. On Collister's low-pitch roofs there is barely enough eave to seat a clip in the first place, which is exactly why the wrong one pops loose in the first hard wind and the right one holds all season. Where the gutter lip is too shallow or too chewed up to trust, the run moves to the shingle edge instead. The other thing a short eave changes is sightline: on a single-story ranch the strand sits close to eye level from the sidewalk, so uneven spacing shows badly. Custom-cut runs are what keep the spacing even, and they are the reason we supply the lights rather than stretching a store strand to reach.
The quote covers the lights themselves — commercial-grade LED strands cut to your roofline — plus install, mid-season fixes if a section goes dark in December, January takedown, and off-season storage. Nothing lives in your garage rafters and nothing gets invoiced twice. Straight talk for Collister specifically: a lot of these single-story homes are genuinely DIY-able. Straight front eave, step ladder on flat ground, a box of clips and an afternoon will do it. Where a crew earns the money is a second story, a steep or iced pitch, a roofline chopped into several sections, or simply not wanting to be on a ladder in January taking it all back down.
October or the first week of November is the window. Dry shingles above freezing make the cleanest installs, and routes fill by mid-November. Lights go up in time for Thanksgiving for anyone who books early, and we keep installing into December for people who decide late. Takedown happens in January and it is already in the number — you do not touch a ladder in the cold, and the set goes into our storage rather than your garage. If a section goes dark before then, call or text (208) 453-6760 and we come fix it; that is part of the job, not a service call.
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Yes, and we will tell you honestly how we are doing it. If the lip and hangers are sound, gutter clips carry the run. If they are not, the run moves to the shingle edge instead. What we will not do is load a failing gutter with a wet strand and let a January freeze finish the argument.
If they have not been done this fall, yes, and the order matters. Clipping over a packed trough means meltwater backs up and ends up as ice under your lights. Mention it when you call and we will sequence the two jobs properly.
We supply them. Every install uses commercial-grade C9 or mini LED strands custom-cut to your roofline. We do not hang store-bought strands — a roof in December is the wrong place to find out a four-year-old set has a dead section, and supplying the lights ourselves is what lets us include mid-season fixes in the quote.
No. Every attachment point is a plastic clip matched to what you actually have — gutter lip, shingle edge or ridge. Nothing is stapled, nailed, screwed or glued. When the lights come down in January there is no evidence they were ever up, which is the whole standard.
Call or text (208) 453-6760 and we come fix it at no charge. That is part of the job, not a separate service call. Commercial-grade strands fail far less than store strings, but wind, squirrels and one crushed bulb still happen — you should not spend a Saturday diagnosing it on a ladder.
We come back, take everything down, and store your set through the off-season, where it gets inspected and repaired before next year. No bins in the garage, no untangling next November, and no second invoice — takedown and storage are already in the quote.
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