What Permanent Christmas Lights Cost in the Tri-Cities

The short answer

Professionally installed permanent Christmas lights run about $20 to $40 per linear foot nationally, according to HomeGuide. Most houses need 100 to 200 feet across the front, so the typical total lands between $2,000 and $8,000. A single-story ranch in south Kennewick sits at the low end. A two-story in Badger Mountain South with tall peaks and a steep pitch sits higher.

That is a real number, and it should be. You are buying a lighting system that goes up once and stays up, not a box of strands. The rest of this guide is how to figure out where your house lands, and whether it beats paying someone to hang lights every November.

What actually moves the price

Footage. This is most of it. Every foot of eave and every sloped edge of a peak gets track and lights. Long, low ranch homes with one big front eave are cheap per foot because they are fast. Lots of short runs, inside corners and small peaks take more cuts and more time.

Height and access. Single-story eaves get done off a ladder. Second-story peaks over a slope, a landscaped bed or a walkout basement take more setup and more care. Expect that to show up in the quote.

Power. The lights run off power supplies that plug into an outdoor outlet. If you have a good GFCI outlet in the right spot, great. If your only outdoor outlet is on the back patio sharing a circuit with the garage freezer, it needs to be fixed first. That is electrical work, and it is where a cheap install turns into a tripping breaker in the middle of December.

Trim color and finish. Track that matches your fascia disappears in the daytime. Track that does not match looks like what it is.

How to measure your own roofline

You do not need a tape measure or a ladder to get close. Stand in the street, decide which edges you actually want lit, and walk them off on the ground. One normal step is roughly two and a half feet. For a peak, count both sloped sides. Add it up.

With 150 feet in hand you can do the rough math yourself: 150 times $20 to $40 is $3,000 to $6,000. That is the range you should expect to see on a quote for a house like this one.

Permanent vs. paying for a yearly install

The usual comparison is not permanent lights versus doing it yourself. It is permanent lights versus paying a crew to hang and pull strands every season. HomeAdvisor puts seasonal professional installs at $2.50 to $7 per foot, and notes takedown is sometimes an extra charge. On our 150 foot house that is roughly $375 to $1,050 every year, forever.

At middle-of-the-road prices, the permanent system has paid for itself somewhere around year six. After that the seasonal option keeps costing money and the permanent one does not. HomeGuide rates the LEDs at 20,000 to 50,000 hours, which is a lot of Decembers, plus every other night you leave them on.

The honest flip side: if you are moving in two years, a permanent system is a gift to the next owner. And if you hang your own lights for free and do not mind the ladder, the math is different. Most people we talk to are done with the ladder, though, and that is usually the whole reason they called.

Why this matters more in the Tri-Cities

Our weather is hard on anything left outside. Summers push past 100 degrees, Richland hit 118 in the 2021 heat wave, and the wind off the river finds every loose clip on a gutter line. Clip-on strands take a beating up and down twice a year. A track mounted tight under the eave is out of the direct sun and out of the wind, which is a big part of why it lasts.

The other local thing is power. A lot of homes here, new builds included, have exactly one outdoor outlet, often on a shared garage circuit and often with a cover that cracked years ago in the sun. Permanent lights run every night if you want them to. That outlet needs to be right.

Questions to ask before you sign anything

1. Who does the electrical? The lights need a GFCI-protected outdoor outlet with a weatherproof in-use cover and a circuit that can carry them. Ask if a licensed electrician is doing that part or if it is getting plugged into whatever is there.
2. Where do the power supplies go? They need a protected spot, not zip-tied in a flower bed. Ask to see where.
3. What is the warranty, and on what? LEDs, power supplies, the controller and the labor can all carry different terms. Get each one in writing.
4. Will the track match my trim? This is the difference between invisible and ugly in daylight. Ask what colors they carry.
5. Is the price per foot or flat? Per foot is easier to compare. Make sure the quote lists the footage they measured.
6. Who sets up the app? You should leave with it on your phone and a schedule already running.

What we do differently

Gale Electric is a licensed electrical contractor, not a seasonal decorating crew. We measure the house, look at the outdoor outlets and the circuit behind them, and give you one written price for the lights, the track and any electrical work before anything goes up. If the outlet needs to be replaced or the lights need their own circuit, it gets done in the same visit, to code. Then we set up the app with you so you leave with a schedule running.

If permanent lights do not make sense for your house, we will tell you that too. See how our permanent Christmas light installs work, or call (509) 205-8146 for a free quote.