Decorate Your Roof or Siding Without Damage – Storm Guard of DuPage

It’s the holiday season and decoration time is upon us. Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas are the times of year we decorate the outside of our homes the most. Where outside decorating is concerned, it’s a good idea to hang those decorations without damaging your roof or siding!

Those outdoor decorations certainly warrant some careful consideration. You want your home to be the bright and shining envy of the neighborhood, but you don’t want to do any damage to your home in the process. Here are some tips that might make your decorating process less of a risk to your home.

Make sure it’s done right

Safety –
Your first and foremost consideration is to makes sure that you do everything safely. This means thinking about both your own safety and the safety of your home. If you have decorations that, for instance, will be on your roof, ask yourself if you’re comfortable on a ladder? Could the decoration damage your roof? Is it too heavy?

For that matter, if decorations require walking on your roof, you may want to hire a professional. Walking on your roof can cause damage to an older roof, not to mention that it may be slippery and unsafe to walk on.

Also keep in mind that your shingles, your gutters, and your siding weren’t made to carry a lot of extra weight. When you’re hanging decorations from them, be careful not to over burden them. Don’t even think about breaking out the ol’ hammer and nails. Nails, staples, screws, or anything else that penetrates your shingles and siding also compromises their integrity, their longevity, and their ability to keep the elements outside your home from getting in. If that isn’t enough, it will also very likely void any warrantee you may have on the materials.

Planning –
Like any project, success depends on panning. Decorating for the holidays should be no different. You may have an idea in your mind of how you want your house to look, but we all know that ideas sometimes look much different in practice. Planning doesn’t have to take a long time, but it can make a big difference.

Print a picture of your house on plain paper and draw out where you want your lights and other decorations. Try different layouts. Above all, understand both your and your homes limitations. Too many lights and decorations can not only look overdone, it can pose a fire hazard. Too few can look sparse and uninteresting. Keeping everything consistently spaced is key.

Look at your house from different angles. People looking at your decorations aren’t just going to see it straight on. Make sure that it presents the image you’re looking for from any angle. Also, be prepared to modify your plan as you go. As you follow your plan and put out your decorations, you may see areas for improvement of your ideas. You should have a plan so that you’re not working haphazardly, but that plan should also be fluid.

Siding

Your siding may be the easiest place to decorate. There are a number of different types of clips made for vinyl siding, that are inexpensive and easy to find. They’re also very easy to use. They attach by sliding them up under the bottom of your vinyl siding panel. They secure themselves well enough to easily hold lights, wreaths, and all sorts of other decorations.

If your siding is smooth rather than textured, there are also suction cups with hooks that are made for both siding and windows.

As always, never use anything that will penetrate your siding!

Roof

First, we don’t recommend walking on your roof. This can be hazardous any time, but particularly in winter months when your roof may be wet and slippery. This is something that’s best left to professionals. If your roof is steep, it may be best to forego putting decorations on it altogether.

When decorating, make sure to keep lights and other decorations away from chimneys, power lines that may run over or near your roof, and tree branches that might be on your roof. If you see any sign of possible damage to your roof, before or after decorating, it may be a good idea to contact Storm Guard of DuPage for a free No-Touch Roof Inspection.

On your roof, like everywhere else on your home, never use any type of fastener to mount decorations that might penetrate or compromise the integrity of your shingles. There are a number of different types of plastic fastener and clips that are made to attach to your shingles without doing any damage or compromising your roof’s seal. Keep in mind that the amount of weight or stress that your shingles can manage is limited. Strings of lights shouldn’t be a problem but Santa’s Sleigh may have to stay on the ground.

If you’re mounting decorations onto your roof, consider how those decorations would fair in a winter storm, or even a higher than usual wind. Decorations that are attached to your roof might not be the only thing damaged if a storm or a high wind blows them off of your roof.

Gutters

Gutters are great for decorations since they are your roof edge’s outline. Lights hanging from your gutter, whether in a straight line or dangling as lighted snowflakes can be striking. However, there are a couple things you should know and be careful about when hanging decorations from your gutters.

Of course, you should never drill holes or use screws when mounting to your gutter. You should always use plastic clips, evenly spaced to support your strings of lights. Gutter clips are easily available from most home improvement centers or online.

Your gutter is just a long trough with a downspout on the end, right? Well, not exactly. Your gutter has been installed on your roof to catch water run-off and route it to the downspout so that it doesn’t build up and cause damage. To do this, it’s mounted firmly against your house with a slight overlap of shingle, and it’s angled consistently toward the downspout. You have to be careful when decorating to not alter these characteristics. Too much weight or stress, especially inconsistent weight can cause changes in how water flows, which can result water pooling in the gutter, running off inconsistently, or draining through a seam. This can result in damage to your roof, your eaves, and even to your home’s foundation over time. Don’t assume that your gutter will revert to its normal shape once the decorations are removed.

Removing your Decorations

Okay, the holidays are over. You and your family had a great time and your home was the envy of the neighborhood. Now it’s time to take the decorations down and put them away for next year. With everyone’s life getting so busy going into the new year, it’s really tempting to simply pull the lights down. As with so many things in life, it’s best to avoid temptation!

We talked about how your roof, siding, and gutters shouldn’t be exposed to undue stress. Taking one end of a string of lights and pulling may feel like they’re coming off easily, but your homes components may not take the tugging as well as you think.

Since you took great care to put the decorations up and make sure they were just right, it makes sense to take them down the same way. Don’t just remove the lights and the decorations, remove the clips too. This not only keeps your homes appearance clean and minimizes the risk of unintended future damage, it also makes the clips easier to find next year.

Closing

The key take-away from these tips is first and foremost, be safe.

Never use staples, screws, or nails when mounting to your roof, your gutters, or your siding. Plastic clips are your best friend. They can be easily found at most home improvement centers or online.

If while you’re decorating, you become aware of existing damage to your roof or siding, don’t hesitate to call Storm Guard of DuPage for a FREE inspection to make sure that your home will keep your family safe and comfortable.

Storm Guard of DuPage – Your Trusted Local Roofing Contractor in DuPage County
825 N. Cass Avenue
Westmont, IL 60559
(630) 812-1716