Commercial Christmas light installation

What commercial work do you take?

Light commercial. In practice that means retail storefronts, small office buildings, restaurant frontages and patios, and HOA common areas — entrances, monument signs, clubhouse buildings and the trees around them.

We are honest about the ceiling. We are not the right company for a regional mall, a high-rise, or anything that needs a lift and a multi-week schedule. Most of our work is houses, and the commercial jobs that go well are the ones at a similar scale: a building you could walk around in a couple of minutes.

If your property is bigger than that, say so when you get in touch and we will tell you straight away whether we are the right fit. We would rather do that than under-deliver on a contract.

How is a commercial job different from a house?

The lighting itself is the same. C9 LED along the roofline, small lights for wrapping, clips instead of fasteners, timers so nobody has to think about it. What changes is everything around the install.

• Access. A business has hours, customers and deliveries. Most of the work happens before opening or after closing, and that has to be planned rather than assumed.
• Parking and safety. Ladders near a public walkway or an active parking lot need the area managed while we work. That is time, and it is the single most common reason a commercial job takes longer than a house of the same size.
• Approvals. Property managers, landlords and centre associations often have their own rules about what can be attached to a building and when. That is worth confirming before a date is set.
• Power. Commercial buildings are less predictable than homes. Sometimes there is an obvious exterior circuit; sometimes the nearest usable outlet is a long way from where the lights go.
• Dates. Businesses usually want lights up earlier than homeowners, because the shopping season starts before the holiday does.

What about HOA common areas?

This is some of our favourite work, because it is a hybrid. The entrance, the monument sign, the clubhouse and the trees at the front of a community are effectively a house-sized job with a commercial approval process attached.

If you are on a board or you manage a community, the useful thing to know is that we already work inside HOA guidelines on the residential side every season, so the design conversation is familiar. The part that needs lead time is the board decision, not the install. More on HOA lighting rules.

How is it priced?

The same way a home is: by what has to be lit, not by a rate per foot. We look at the property, we agree what is getting lit and how, and we give you one number.

The published bands on this site — $400–$800 for a roofline and $1,000–$2,500 for a full front — are homeowner packages, and we will not pretend they map cleanly onto a commercial property. A small storefront can land close to them. Anything with real access complexity will not.

So commercial gets a custom quote, and we will not give you a number over the phone before we have seen the property. Every commercial quote we send names what is included, what the dates are, and what removal covers.

What is included?

The same list as a residential job: the lights, the timers, the clips, the install, maintenance through the season, and removal in January. We own the strands and store them, so next year is a phone call and a date.

Maintenance matters more on a commercial property than on a house. A dark section on your building reads badly to customers in a way it never does at home, so a call about a failed run gets treated as the priority it is.

What will a property manager ask for?

Usually three things: a written scope, the dates the display is up and down, and confirmation of how it is attached. We supply all three with the quote, because a manager approving work on a building they do not own needs it on paper.

If your manager needs anything further before work can be scheduled, ask us directly and we will answer in writing rather than over the phone, so you have something to forward.

When should a business book?

Earlier than a homeowner. Commercial jobs need a walk-through, sometimes an approval, and a schedule that fits around your hours — and all of that happens before the install date, in the same weeks the residential calendar is filling.

September or early October is comfortable. By November, the conversation gets compressed into the busiest stretch of our year. How the season fills up.

What this means for your quote

Send photos of the frontage and tell us three things: what you want lit, what your hours are, and whether a landlord or association has to approve it. We will come out, look at access, and send a written quote with dates. There is no charge for the visit.

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