Finally Got the Icicle Lights Hung on Garage

[Linda McDonald]

This is how we hung our icicle lights on the peak of the garage.The peak of the garage is about 30 ft. high and really hard to hang lights with a ladder. So, I wanted to come up with a way to hang these lights so that even I could do it (I'm only 5'2"). So, here's what we did.

1. Drilled the holes through the PVC pipe.

2. Inserted the cable through the pipe and made a loop on the top end, secured with cable clamp.

3. Made a loop on the bottom end, inserted it through a turnbuckle and secured with cable clamp.

4. Secured the lights through the PVC pipe using vinyl electrical tape.

5. Screwed a ceiling hook to the peek of the garage. (While we were up there, we got rid of the wasp's nest ). The ceiling hook is so high up (and we usually get a wasps nest there every year anyways), I don't mind the hook staying there permanently.

6. Inserted two eye hooks under the fascia at the bottom of each side of the garage slopes. Since these hooks are under the fasica, you can't see them and I don't mind it being there all year round. The turnbuckles at the bottom of the PVC pipe hook onto these eye hooks.

Now, from a step ladder, I can slip the hook at the top of the PVC pipe to the peak of the garage, insert the turnbuckle into the eye hook at the bottom. Then tighten the turnbuckle to pull the PVC pipes into place.

It was pretty cool watching those PVC pipes move into place as we turned the turnbuckle!






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[Melvin Stoddard]

Cool idea. Could you show another picture of the turnbuckle but back a little, to see where your lights start. By the way what size was your pvc.

[Linda McDonald]

We used 1/2" 600 PSI PVC pipe. The lighted length on each side is 17.5 feet. We used cut each pipe to 8.75 feet each and cemented the connector to one side. This way we could unconnect the pipe and fold in half. Then, it will fit in the rafters of our shed that is 10 feet long. Here's another picture.

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[Guest Don Gillespie]

Linda McDonald wrote:

5. Screwed a ceiling hook to the peek of the garage. (While we were up there, we got rid of the wasp's nest ). The ceiling hook is so high up (and we usually get a wasps nest there every year anyways), I don't mind the hook staying there permanently.

good idea and in the summer if you hang a brown paper bag off of the hook the wasps won't come back just blow the bag up and tie it off it looks like a large wasps nest and the wasps won't invade another colony just an idea