← Holiday light bid calculator
Holiday lighting contractors get shopped on a published $3 / lineal foot Christmas light hang Facebook special. Those numbers cannot see the take-down or the stories. A 1-story ranch C9 hang-only is a different job from a two-story Victorian with icicles, tree wraps, January take-down, and off-season storage.
Open the free holiday light bid calculatorHoliday lights are an eave, then a scope, then how you reach it. Lineal feet is the run. Hang-only is clips on customer-owned C9. Hang-and-takedown is a second trip in January. Full service — contractor lights plus storage until next year — is another crew package. One-story is a ladder. Two-story needs a taller ladder or a small lift. Three-story is a lift.
The cheap special is almost always C9 on a 1-story ranch, no take-down, no trees, no lift. A two-story hang-and-takedown is a different crew day. Matching a hang per-foot number on a full-service Victorian is how a sold light job becomes a January loss when take-down eats the margin.
Landscape lighting is low-voltage path and uplights. Soffit and fascia is wrap or replace of the eave board. Gutter install is a K-style trough. Exterior painting is a coat on elevations. This prices holiday lights: hang, take-down, and extras. The eave here is the roofline you clip lights to, not those other jobs.
Load the wage with payroll burden. Add overhead as a share of direct cost. Then take margin as a share of the customer’s price, not a markup on cost. The walk-away number is total cost. A proposed price under that number loses money before you take anything out of it.
This page is a walkthrough of the arithmetic in the holiday light bid calculator. It is not an electrical design, a load calculation, a permit determination, or a price you should copy onto a contract.
Charge from eave lineal feet, scope, stories, and extras — not a published $3 / LF hang special. A 1-story ranch C9 hang-only is a different job from a two-story Victorian with icicles, tree wraps, January take-down, and off-season storage.
No. Hang-only is clips on customer-owned lights. Hang-and-takedown is a second crew day in January. Full service — contractor lights plus storage until next year — is another one still. Matching a hang special on a full-service job is how a sold light job becomes a January loss when take-down eats the margin.
A 1-story ranch is an extension ladder. A 2-story house needs a taller ladder or a small lift. A 3-story or steep eave needs a lift. Height does not live in a published per-foot dump.
No. Landscape lighting is low-voltage path and uplights. Soffit and fascia is wrap or replace of the eave board. Gutter install is a K-style trough. This prices holiday lights: hang, take-down, and extras.