Do Christmas Lights Survive Pacific Northwest Rain and Wind?

Nobody in this region needs to be told it rains. What people do not expect is that rain is rarely what kills a light display here. Standing water at the connections and wind fatigue are.

The three real failure modes

1. 1Water sitting in a connection. Outdoor-rated lights handle rain falling on them. They do not handle a plug lying in a puddle on the deck. Every connection should be up off the ground with a drip loop below it.
2. 2Wind fatigue. A run with too few clips whips in a storm. Whipping loosens sockets, cracks lenses and pulls clips off the gutter. This is the number one cause of a section going dark in January.
3. 3Cheap sockets. Big-box strings use thin sockets that admit water and corrode. Commercial-grade sockets are the single biggest durability difference between a store set and what a professional installs.

What holds up here

• Commercial-grade C9 LED with sealed, gasketed sockets rather than pressed-together consumer sets.
• Clips every 12 inches, tighter at peaks and corners, so nothing has slack to whip.
• Outdoor-rated cords and GFCI outlets, with connections elevated and looped.
• Runs cut to length so there is no coiled excess sitting in a gutter full of water.

Where the wind is worst

Exposure varies a lot across our service area. Whidbey Island, Birch Bay and Blaine, the Stanwood and Camano flats, and anything on the Bellingham waterfront take real gusts off the water. Inland Skagit and Snohomish valley homes get far less. We build clip density to the site, not to a standard spacing.

Gutters, while we are up there

A gutter packed with fir needles holds water against your fascia all winter, and it is also where clipped light runs sit. If your gutters have not been cleared before the lights go up, that is the order to do it in.