nEED SOME THOUGHTS ON DISPLAYING CURTAIN STROBES

[LENNY RUEL]

With going to a much bigger display this upcoming Christmas I have some of the LED Curtain strobes ordered from CDI and I'm interested in getting some input from a few of you on how to display or mount them. In reading up on these it seems that to get the best "flash" you need to mount these with the end pointed towards the viewer.

I know how I want to mount them below the gutter line on the house. What I'm looking for is thoughts on above the gutter line. In giving this some thought I trashed the idea of suspending a line and hanging them from that as it would be tought to suspend a line the width of the house with some tension. Also in thinking about it would be tough to make them stay pointed to the street.

My idea is to take a 12" x 12" x 2" thick inch paver or landscape block for a base. Then I want to take a couple tapcons (concrete screws) and fasten a 12" length of 2x4 to the top side. Before I fastened it I would drill a 3/4" hole in the 2x4 at an angle that would match the slope of my roof which is a pretty standard 6 x 12 pitched ranch. I'd insert 3' lengths of PVC in these holes and fasten the C-9 sockets to the tops. Then I'd randomly place these around my roof. What do you think? With the easy pitch the pavers should stay put. Also with living in Wisconsin I need to get the strobes off the roof a bit so they don't get covered with snow. I was thinking of either taking an elbow and opening the top up to set the sockets in or just rounding the end in a little to make in concave and pucnh a hole through that I could use a ladder tie to fasten it to the end on top of my supports. I could also use a yard stake made for C-9 and just slip that in the end also I suppose. Thanks for any feed back or better ideas.

Lenny

[Max-Paul]

Wow, let me just throw out one thought, "Ice Dam". Now I am not a roofer or in the house construction trade. But I have to wonder how this paver will react to damming up water flow and snow / ice on the roof. Will it be enough to back-up water so that it can seep back under the shingles?

I would talk to someone in the trade and see what their PROFESSIONAL thought are. I capped the word professional because I am not and want to make that point. It's just a knee jerk reaction I had to the thought of anything that would block or impede the drainage of water off of your roof.

Maybe if the paver is turned so that a corner points up to the top of the roof. That may be a solution.

Max

[LENNY RUEL]

Max, turning it is a good idea. I'm not sure it would have been an issue before but with it turned any melt off should for sure run around it. I'm guessing before it would have probably just seeped under and might refreeze enough to maybe cause a problem.
But I was also thinking as long as it isn't placed at the bottom edge of a run of shingles that would prevent that as well. The ice dams that happen along gutters is helped by the fact that first row of shingles is heaved up from the frozen water. I would think farther up the roof line that isn't as apt to happen. But I'm still interested in hearing how others position their strobes if they live in a northern climate. Farther south you can kind of just leave them sit on the roof since you don't get the snow to cover them up. I've seen steeper roofs in the north stay fairly clean. So many of the new houses are 12/10 or 12/12 pitches but with my ranch being built in the late 80's that 12/5 or 12/6 was common. It works for me since I don't like heights and I'm only about 15' up at the higher peak.

Lenny

[Steven]

This probably isn't appropriate for your situation, but I attached white LED strings to the peaks of my roof with hot glue. It will come off with a gentle tug, but can be permanent enough that I just left them up from last year.

I realize curtain strobes are quite a bit bigger than LEDs, but I bet hot glue will still hold them.

This will depend on your roofing material. We have steel shingles. Hot glue may have trouble sticking to wooden shingles or shakes.

It also wouldn't solve the problem of keeping the lights above the snow. I'm glad I live in sunny California where the only thing that happens in December is rain!

[LENNY RUEL]

Steven:
Actually I've been thinking of an easier way to fasten strings to my roof lines as well.
I use LED C-7's and outline the entire roof; gutters, peaks, valleys and eaves with them.
It takes about 500 shingle tabs (we have asphalt shingles by the way) While the tabs are easy on the eaves and gutters, the peaks and valleys are more work.
On the peaks I use 10" bungee cords with wire hooks on the ends to straddle the cap shingles at each light. In the vallevs of course it's a matter of trying to get the tabs to slide under the shingles, which isn't the easiest once the suns melts them together during the summer.
I was thinking of taking some 1"PVC and cutting a slot the length of each piece about 1/2 an inch wide and slipping the strings of C-7's in them. All of the wire and sockets would be in the tube and the bulb should stick straight up out of the slot. I could use a few small sandbags then to hold the lengths of PVC down rather than a bungee at each light. Problem of course is IF they don't hold in the wind and I have snow on the roof I probably end up with no lights up there from that point on during the season. I guess maybe the time it would take to cut the slots and possibly have the tubes blow off is more troublesome than just using those small bungees.....I did find out this year that once the LED's are covered with snow they stay covered. Regular C-7 bulbs generated enough heat that the snow on them melted or had a neat glow until it did. I use Strictly green and red in a 3 to 1 rotation. With the snow we had this year at least the gutters and eaves looked great. With the regular ones using a full 15+ amps though compared to the barely 1 and a half or so the LED's do, I'll stick with the LED's. They are static and it give me more power for controllers.

Lenny