Holiday Lighting Installation in Shaker Heights, OH

The east side gets more snow, so it gets scheduled first

Northeast Ohio does not get snow evenly. Cold air crossing Lake Erie drops most of its moisture on the east side, from Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights out through Chagrin Falls and into Geauga County, while Westlake and Avon on the west side often get a fraction of it. The snowbelt is a real line, and Shaker Heights is on the wrong side of it for anyone planning to be on a roof in late November.

So we build our route around it. East side installs are scheduled ahead of west side installs every season, and Shaker homeowners who reach out in late summer or early fall choose their dates. Once the first lake-effect band lands on the Heights, remaining installs are worked in around the weather on days the roof is dry. We will not put a crew on a snow-loaded slate roof, and nobody else should be up there either.

How we attach to slate and clay tile

This is the part of the job that separates installers in Shaker Heights. Fernway, Malvern, Boulevard, and Lomond are full of Tudors, colonials, and French revivals from the 1920s and 1930s with original slate, clay tile, and copper. You cannot clip a strand to slate the way you clip it to an asphalt shingle, and you absolutely cannot drive a fastener into it. One cracked slate is a leak and a specialist repair.

• No penetration, ever. We do not drill, nail, screw, or staple into slate, tile, copper, or original trim. Not once.
• Gutter and fascia attachment. Where the home has gutters, the strand rides a gutter clip on the lip. Where it does not, we use fascia clips on the wood behind the drip edge. The slate is never touched.
• Non-penetrating brackets for tile. On clay-tile rooflines without a workable gutter edge, we use brackets shaped to the tile profile that hold by tension, not by fastener.
• Walkway discipline. Crews do not walk slate. Ladders, standoffs, and lifts keep weight off the roof surface.

When the display comes down in January, the roof is exactly as we found it. That is the standard, and it is why so many of our east side clients are referrals from a neighbor with the same roof.

Custom-cut strands for complex rooflines

A Shaker Heights roofline is rarely a single run. Steep main gables, cross gables, dormers, a turret on the corner, a porte-cochere on the side. We measure every run you want lit at the walkthrough and cut commercial-grade LED strands to those lengths. No coiled slack behind the dormer, no splice at the ridge, no half-lit section where a stock strand ran out. The display fits the architecture because it was built for it.

Most Shaker clients choose warm white along the roofline with garland on the entry and a wreath in every front window, which suits the houses. Color and tree wraps are available and we design them to the house rather than against it.

What the service includes

• On-site measurement and design at your home, with an honest read on the roof material and what attachment it needs
• Commercial-grade LED roofline lighting, custom-cut, in warm white, cool white, or color
• Optional wreaths, garland, column wraps, tree wraps, and landscape uplighting
• Installation by our crew with timers set to local sunset and every connection weather-sealed
• In-season service if a section goes dark, at no additional charge
• Takedown after the holidays on our ladders and our schedule
• Labeled storage so next season is a re-hang of the same design

Takedown on the east side is the dangerous half

By January a Shaker Heights slate roof is glazed, the copper gutters are full of ice, and the lights still have to come down. This is where homeowners get hurt and where slate gets broken. Our takedown crews run through the winter on days the roof is safe to work from the ladder and the lift. We pull the display, coil and label every strand with your name, and store it until next fall. If a snow week pushes your date, we tell you and reschedule. We do not send a crew onto an iced slate roof, and we would rather you did not go up there either.

If you want out of the annual install and takedown entirely, we also install permanent LED roofline systems that mount to the fascia, never the slate, and switch to holiday color from an app.

Warm white, garland, and the Shaker look

Walk Shaker Boulevard or South Park in December and you will notice the houses that look right share a restraint. Warm white along the main roofline and the front gables, garland with a bow on the entry, a single wreath in each front window, and sometimes one large tree wrapped at the corner of the lot. The slate and the stone do the rest. We design to that when it suits the house, and we are glad to go bolder when a client wants color, animated accents, or a fully wrapped front yard. The point of measuring and designing at your home is that the display belongs to the house, not to a package.

Neighborhoods we light in and around Shaker Heights

Fernway · Malvern · Boulevard · Lomond · Moreland · Sussex · Onaway · Ludlow · Shaker Square · plus Cleveland Heights, University Heights, Beachwood, Pepper Pike, and Chagrin Falls

The Shaker Heights service-area page covers everything we do in the city year-round, and the holiday lighting page covers the seasonal service in detail.

Get on the east side route

If your home is in Shaker, Cleveland Heights, or anywhere east of the river, the earlier you reach out the more say you have in your date. Call (614) 502-6585 or use the contact form and we will follow up with next steps.