What Is Rope Lighting?
If you're getting ready to deck the halls with Christmas lights for your Ottawa home, then rope lighting may be right for you. Before you book your appointment with Christmas Décor to beat the December rush for holiday lighting, you'll want to choose which fixtures you want to light up your holiday season. If you're unfamiliar with this gorgeous form of lighting, read on to learn more.
What is rope lighting?
Rope lighting is a tube of PVC with small light bulbs inside. This lighting is flexible, and therefore easy to shape around doorframes and eaves troughs. This lighting is great for interior decorating as well.
The benefits of rope lighting
Rope lighting adds soft accents that brightly light up your home on even the darkest winter nights. This is subtle illumination that adds a little festive mystery to any aspect of your home's architecture or landscaping. Their flexibility entitles you to wrap it around trees, eaves, doors, and even through garlands.
The plastic coating protects the bulbs from damage, even in extremely bad snowstorms. Their durability is one of the more enticing benefits of rope lighting. This allows you to have more diversity as far as where you can place them in your landscaping.
Rope lighting is great too because it can be cut to fit your specific length requirements.
Rope lighting comes in a variety of colours, and even bi-coloured. Bi-coloured lights let the tones fluidly change into one another, creating an almost Northern Light kind of effect and appearance.
Rope lighting has LED options. If you want to prevent your Christmas lights from hiking up your energy bills, LED may be a great option. These bright lights use less energy and can last up to 100,000 hours whereas incandescent rope lights will only last up to 3,000. LED lights also cast a broader splash of light across the night due to the concave bulbs.
Flexible LED strips can also be found for your holiday light installation. These are flatter than regular rope lighting. This doesn't prevent them from being versatile in use. These can still be used indoors, around trees and eaves, doorframes, along porches – anywhere your heart desires!
Rope lighting, particularly LED rope lighting, will not add extra heat to an already heated living room. Because of this, you can string them through garlands and wreaths without worrying about causing a fire hazard.
See examples of rope lighting and other forms of Christmas lighting designs in our Christmas Decor Ottawa gallery for inspiration!
Wire count and voltage
Most rope lighting will be composed of two wires. This creates a steady, stable effect. Rope lighting that is 3 – 5 wires is used for chasing or flashing between colours, or other special effects for your holiday lights.
Rope lights come in either kits or spools. If you have a smaller project, a rope light kit should work well. For anything larger, such as around eaves, or outlining the roof, you may want to invest in a rope light spool. For projects with a nearby power outlet, such as houses, 120V rope lighting will be right for you. Anything else, such as floats or bikes, will need 12V lighting.
What diameter to use for Christmas lights
For smaller projects, such as signs and designs, you'll want to use 3/8" rope lighting. This is great for making sharper corners and tight designs.
Larger projects that span out over a wider area will use ½" rope lights. Any eaves troughs, trees, or doorframes can use this diameter.
Beat the December rush for holiday light installations!
Book your appointment with Christmas Décor Ottawa today!
