Generated photograph, not a photo of our work.
Questions
Everything people ask us
27 answers, including the ones that are not flattering. If yours is not here, call (906) 291-1601 and ask a person.
The basics
6 questions
What is permanent lighting?
A track of individually controlled LEDs fitted along your roofline and left there year-round. You run it from an app: soft warm white most nights, full color for a holiday, every bulb to white if you want the frontage lit. No ladder in November and no take-down in January.
Is this the same as your holiday lighting service?
No, and we do both. Holiday lighting is a seasonal display: we put it up, look after it, take it down in January and store it. Permanent lighting goes up once and stays, and it does the holidays plus every other night of the year.
How long does the install take?
Most houses are one day. A large frontage with dormers, a wraparound porch and a detached garage can run into a second day. We tell you which it is when we measure, not on the morning we turn up.
What do I need at the house?
Wifi. We provide the rest: the lights, the track, the controller, and the app set up on your phone before we leave.
Do I have to be home?
For the measure it helps, because the decisions about what gets lit are easier made standing in the driveway with you. For the install, only at the end: the last thing we do is put the app on your phone and run through it with you.
Does it work on any house?
Almost. The roof decides how it mounts, not the catalog: track, adjustable clips, moulded clips or magnetic strings. The honest exceptions are a roof we cannot safely reach without staging, which we will tell you at the measure, and a frontage with nothing to run along.
How it looks
5 questions
Can you see it during the day?
You have to look for it. The channel is UV-coated PVC in white, black, brown, gray or sand, all five in stock, and we match it to your trim so it reads as part of the roofline. At night you see the light, not the track.
Will it look like Christmas lights in June?
Not on the setting almost everybody leaves it on. Warm white along a roofline reads as architectural lighting, which is the same thing a hotel or a restaurant does to its frontage. The colors are there for the fifteen nights a year you want them.
Can I have one color on one part of the house?
Yes. Every bulb is addressed individually, so a run can be one color and the next run another, and a pattern can travel along the roofline instead of the whole thing changing at once.
Will my neighbours hate it?
Fair question, and the answer is how it is set rather than what it is. The light throws down onto your own walls, not out across the road, and the brightness is adjustable. Most of the complaints people have seen come from strings aimed outward off a gutter, which is not what this is.
Can I see one in person?
Ask. We would rather you stood in front of a lit house than took a website's word for it.
Weather and upkeep
6 questions
What happens if a bulb goes out?
The strings use a double data line, so one bad pixel does not take the rest of the run with it. The lights stay on and we come and replace the bulb.
Does it survive a U.P. winter?
It is built to stay up. Minleon manufactures these strings for four-season, year-round use with extra insulation on the wire, which is a different product from a seasonal strand somebody left on the roof. The fixtures sit inside a channel under the shingle edge rather than clipped to the gutter, so snow coming off the roof goes past them.
Can you install in winter?
Yes. We install year-round, winter included.
What about the power bill?
They are low-voltage LEDs on a 24-volt system, so the draw is small. We are not going to print a figure, because the honest one depends on how much roofline you have lit, how bright you run it and how many hours a night, and a made-up average is worth nothing to you.
What if something stops working?
Call us and we come out. The double data line means one bad pixel does not take the run down with it, so you are looking at a lit house with a gap in it rather than a dark one, and nobody is on a ladder in February except us. The lights are warrantied for 100,000 hours and our labor for two years.
Does it need cleaning?
Not really, and if we are already there washing your windows we will look at it. That is one of the advantages of the lights and the cleaning being the same company.
Price and the quote
5 questions
What does it cost?
It depends on how much roofline you want lit, and there is no honest way to answer it from a desk. We come out, measure the runs, and give you a written price. A small single-story frontage and a large house with dormers and a wraparound porch are not close to the same job.
Why will you not put a price on the website?
Because the number is built from the measurement. A single-storey ranch frontage and a two-storey with dormers and a wraparound porch are not close to the same job, and a range wide enough to cover both tells you nothing. We would rather spend an hour at your house than have you find out the website was wrong.
Does the measure cost anything?
No, and there is no deposit to get a number and no obligation once you have it.
Does the price change after I accept it?
Not unless you change the job. The written price lists what it covers.
Is it cheaper to do the landscape lighting at the same time?
It saves a trip. Right now our landscape work is swapping the bulbs in your existing lights for Minleon ones, which is quick to do on the same visit as the roofline.
Where and who
5 questions
Do you do commercial buildings?
Yes, and it is where a lot of this is going. Dealerships, restaurants, storefronts and municipal buildings. The commercial strings are brighter by design, built to read from across a parking lot.
Do you install landscape lighting too?
Yes, and it is growing. Right now we can swap the bulbs in your existing landscape lights for Minleon ones, so the yard runs from the same app as the roofline. More is coming by spring.
Where do you install?
We are based in Gould City and work across Michigan's Eastern Upper Peninsula. For lighting we also travel to Sault Ste. Marie, Marquette, Escanaba and Petoskey. If you are outside that and want a measure, ask. We will tell you straight whether it is a drive we can make.
Are you actually local?
Gould City. Same family that cleans the windows, same phone number, same trucks, and we do the install ourselves. We are not a franchise that drives up for the season.
Do you do municipal work?
Yes. Civic buildings, parks, downtown blocks and bridges. One system that carries the season, the holiday and the ordinary Tuesday in between, on a schedule so nobody has to remember to change it.
Easier to show than to tell
Some answers are pictures
Every color The scenes that come standard, photographed on a house and on a public building. Change any of them, or save up to 1,000 of your own. 
What it looks like in daylight The same house at eleven in the morning, and a close look at the channel the lights sit in. 
Running it from your phone Scenes, schedules, zones, and every bulb to white when you want the frontage lit. 
A U.P. winter February, snow on the ground, lights on, and nobody standing on a ladder. 
The half below the roofline Paths, beds, trees and the drive. What makes a property look finished after dark. Generated photographs, not photos of our work.
We work across Michigan's Eastern Upper Peninsula. Outside it, ask anyway and we will tell you straight, or call (906) 291-1601.
Book a measure
Get a real number, not a guess
Lighting is priced off your actual roofline, so we come and measure it. Every house is a different length of run, a different number of gables, and a different climb. Anyone quoting you from a desk is guessing.
- We measure the roofline on site. That is the only way the number is real.
- You get the price in writing, with what it covers.
- No deposit to get a number, and no obligation after you have one.
Would rather talk? (906) 291-1601. We work across Michigan's Eastern Upper Peninsula.
