🧰 How to Store Your Christmas Lights the Right Way

Whether you're a homeowner putting away your holiday lights for the year, or a professional installer managing multiple customer jobs, proper storage is one of the easiest ways to extend the life of your lighting materials.

📦 Best Way to Store Roofline Lights

For most homes, your roofline lighting won’t take up a ton of space. The best way to store it?

Use small cardboard banker boxes.

• ✅ Airflow: Unlike plastic totes, banker boxes allow lights to dry out even if they're wet or icy.

• ✅ Perfect size: Just big enough for organized bundles of socket wire and bulbs.

• ✅ Cost-effective: Cheap, stackable, and disposable if they get too worn out.

👉 Wrap your strands in manageable loops, zip tie them in place, and drop them in a dry banker box. That’s it.

🏗️ Storing Larger Jobs or Trees

If you’ve done a bigger commercial job or wrapped a lot of trees and bushes with mini lights, then plastic storage totes may be a better option for bulk organization.

Just make sure to:

• 🔁 Coil and tie light strands so they don’t tangle

• 🌬️ Leave lids cracked until lights are completely dry

• 💦 Never let lights sit in water at the bottom of a tote — moisture will ruin even the best materials over time

👷 Installers: Always Store Customer Lights

If you're a pro installer, you should always store the customer’s lights yourself—whether you sold the lights or leased them.

Why?

• ⏱️ You’ll never have to wait for a customer to be home or find their boxes during rehang season

• 🧰 You can ensure the lights are coiled, tied, labeled, and dry

• 💡 Proper storage helps protect your material investment and cuts down on replacements

If a customer stores their lights in a shed or attic where they stay wet or exposed to heat — expect issues next year.

💡 Final Tips

• ✔️ Zip tie all bundles before storing

• ✔️ Label boxes with customer names and install notes

• ✔️ Use breathable containers when possible

• ⚠️ Never store lights in a sealed container if they’re wet — moisture = corrosion

Good storage = fewer replacements, less headache, and smoother installs next season.

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