The Christmas hype is the biggest amongst all holidays in the US. Many Americans even start the celebrations in November.
The cities are full of decorations, lights, and Christmas trees. The restaurants, pubs are crowded and the radio and television are full of Christmas meals and gift ideas.
It’s hard to stay real and not get lost in this mesmerizing realm.
Seeing all this, most of us want to decorate and brighten our homes with some extravagant illuminations.
But before you head out to get Christmas lights, it’s helpful if you know how long is a string of Christmas lights and how many of them you want.
Let’s find out.
How Long Is a String of Christmas Lights?
This section tells about the standard string length of different kinds of lights.
1. C7/C9 Christmas Lights:
The C7 and C9 LEDs are bought by most Americans because of their energy-saving and bright laminations.
The C7/C9 lights are more than 10 times more durable than the traditional light bulbs.
The C7 bulbs are 1.5 inches long and are available in 5 watts while the C9 are over 2 inches long and are 7 to 10 watts.
Most of the C7 and C9 string lights are 25 ft long and contain around 25 bulbs in the wiring.
2. Mini Christmas lights:
Mini Christmas lights are best to cover Christmas trees, Christmas statues, and Snow-mans.
These bulbs have a pointed tip shape that resembles candles and is generally 0.25 inch in diameter and 0.625 inches tall.
These multidimensional lights come in many variations and the standard string length is 24 ft. long with around 70 LED lights on it.
Wrap columns, bushes, garlands, railings, etc. easily as most of these strings can be connected with each other end to end.
3. Icicle Christmas Lights:
If you want to decorate your roof awnings, peak, windows, or overhangs, icicle lights are an excellent choice for you.
Typically, icicle lights have the traditional M5 shape, but you can also choose the wide-angle style that spreads the light further and make your home shine brighter.
The icicle bulbs have 3 sizes including 6’, 8’, and 10’. The standard string length of an Icicle string is around 6ft. and it contains around 100 bulbs per set.
You can also buy the longer 26ft. wire that has 300 bulbs in it and has a drop design with around 50 drops.
4. Net Christmas Light:
Net Christmas lights can make the tree trunks, columns, and bushes look glittering.
Net Christmas lights usually come with connectors and on average you can connect between 14 to 21 net lights in one outlet.
Net lights typically measure around 4’x 6’, but you can also get trunk wraps in 2’x6’, 2’x8’, and 2’x 12’ sizes.
The number of LED light bulbs can range from 150 to 200 per set, which can easily make your outdoors shimmer.
5. Rope lights:
The last kind is rope lights that are the easiest to set up and can be used to give a glittering touch to the walkway, deck, staircases, and long trees.
Rope lights are basically a long cylindrical tube that houses internal twinkling lights every few inches. The tubes come in ½’’ and ⅜’’ diameters.
Rope lights can run upwards of 250 ft. when used with AC and 50ft. when used with DC.
These high-quality sparkling tubes add a great touch in completing your Christmas decorations.
What Happens If You String too many Christmas Lights Together?
Even though LED string lights require fewer watts, your Christmas lights should never exceed 80% of the max wattage capacity of your household circuits (most household circuits have 15 to 20amps and support around 1800 to 2400 watts).
Excessive strings of Christmas lights will cause short circuit.
To Decorate a Christmas Tree, How Long Light String You May Need?
The total length of the string will vary according to the size of the Christmas tree you want in your home.
One really great way to know the number of strands you need is to use the thumb rule which suggests 100 lights for every 1.5 feet of tree covering.
You can double or triple cover but following this rule would mean you need around:
- 400 – 700 light for 6-7 ft tall tree.
- 700-1000 lights for 7.5-8.5 ft tall tree
- 1000-1300 lights for 9-10 ft tall tree.
- Around 2000 lights for 12 ft tall tree.
How Many Feet of Christmas Lights You May Need for Your House?
If you want to decorate your home in the classic Christmas style.
For Front Yard, You can start with 2 strands of 32ft mini-lights for an average or small-sized house for a total of 200 lights.
But if you prefer C9 lights you can use 4 strands of 16 ft lengths.
To decorate the eaves of your home, start with at least 60 ft. of icicle lights and add an additional 10-12 ft per awning.
For live trees and shrubs, use 100 mini lights for every vertical foot.
A single 16-foot strand can cover a door and the same length of the strand is required per single-width window.
For columns and pillars, one 32 ft strand of 100 light per 7 ft of the vertical length.
Single 14ft strand of 50 lights per window box.
Measure the deck railing to determine how many light strands you would need.
NOTE: If you are planning to wrap the lights around rather than using clips add an extra foot.
How to Calculate How Many Christmas Lights You Need?
If you have the time and patience, start by measuring your interiors with measuring tape and then add on the outdoors.
Step 1: Use a tape measure or laser measuring tool to measure the length of the front of your house. (width of your house, if you are looking from the street.)
Step 2: After that take measurements of the left and right sides and if you want to add more cheer to your deck, patio, or backyard, take the measurements of the backside (usually it’s not required, but it’s up to you).
Step 3: To cover the upper portion of the peaks of the triangle-shaped roof that are in a 4:12 ratio, you will need 26 and ½ feet for each peak. (Note: This is based on the house that’s 25 ft long on the sides )
Step 4: Select the number of outdoor features such as trees, bushes, windows, deck railings, etc you want to decorate and add them together.
Step 5: Add approximately 1-2 ft to all of the strands except net lights to ensure you are not short of decorations.
Note:
Christmas light lengths are expressed in 2 terms: strand length and lighted length.
The lighted length is always about a foot less than the strand length. Keep that in mind while buying.
FAQs
1. How long is a string of 100 Christmas lights?
Approx 20.6 ft lighted length or 21.4 strand length
2. How long is a string of 300 Christmas lights?
Approx 74.5 ft lighted length. If you are choosing mini bulbs then around 61 ft.
3. How long is a light string for the 6-foot tree?
6 strands of light of around 600-1200 lights. You would need around 15 – 30 meters of lighting depending on if you want to cover it once or twice.
4. How long is a string of icicle lights?
The length varies between 5.5-8.5 ft. of lighted length.
5. How many Christmas lights can I string together?
There’s no limit. You can connect around 40-50 sets of LED mini lights and more.
The only rule is to not exceed more than 80% of circuit capacity.
As most homes have 15 or 20 amp circuits. Keep the total wattage between 1800-24000 watts.
