[admin]

I have a couple large evergreens in my front yard I'd like to decorate for Christmas. They're about 20' wide, and 40'+ high. When it's over 60' around a tree, it will obviously be a challenge to light them. Anyone have experience doing something like this, or have any pointers?

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being a monkey....be carefull climbing up there...

my aunt used to always have a 30' christmas tree INDOORS...it was artificial...but it was huge...she had something like 80,000 lights on it...

you could make some LED "throwies" (an led taped to a battery) and just chuck those up there?

[dsenette]

being a monkey....be carefull climbing up there...

my aunt used to always have a 30' christmas tree INDOORS...it was artificial...but it was huge...she had something like 80,000 lights on it...

you could make some LED "throwies" (an led taped to a battery) and just chuck those up there?

[harrythook]

Depending on the landscape around the trees, there are lifts that are availble to rent. These machines are somewhat difficult to use and are very bulky to transport. They are also somewhat pricey to rent.

The best option (which I have used) is to contact local tree surgeons, and ask if they would price out decorating your trees. The contractor I used had a truck with an articulated bucket arm on it and in the span of an hour did the entire job. They do that type of thing every day and I was amazed with the speed that the lights went up.

If you chose this, ask the contractor to lay the lights out in a fashion that you can just pull them down. My first try at removal resulted with one string of lights in hand, and the next was 20 feet up in a tree

[admin]

Probably a good idea contacting a tree service. One concern of mine was the power requirements. Having put bulbs around my house before the recommend no more than 100 C5 lights in a run. That would only be a couple of times around the tree. How many cords will I need to run?

[harrythook]

What I did was utilize an existing service in my garage, capable of handling 40 amps. from there I used 2 heavyduty extension cords that had 6 outlets each. This gave me ample connection space for the end cords.

Most lights are fused inline, therefore you cannot string too many together without overloading the fuse. I had my end extensions run at the center line of the tree, and had them tied to the lights to facilitate the removal process. I had no more than 2 strands of lights to each end extension.

Keep in mind that the primary power source I was using is ground fault protected. You start messing with all that amperes out in the enviroment, coupled with the occasional relative that hits the egg nog a little too hard, a problem may arise. My supply is based off the normal hot-tub disconnect available at any of the lowes/home depot type of stores.

[ScHwErV]

I dont have a huge tree in my front yard, but I help a neighbor with his.

First pointer is - use the big lights - you know, the old fashioned ones. Many dont have the power requirements of the small bulbs because they dont have in-line fuses. They also look better on a large tree. Also, if one bulb burns out, the whole line doesnt burn out.

Second, put the lights in the tree a bit so that you arent tempted to take them down every year. As the tree grows, you may have to go at it every other year and either add more lights, change lights, or move them out a bit, but they can stay there during the non-christmas months.

If you take the "keep em in there" method, then its worth renting equipment to put them up. You only have to rent it every other year, and on subsequent years, you only have to have it for a short time period.

Otherwise, I would hire it done as it would be a huge undertaking to re-do them every year.

[admin]

I thought about the big bulbs too. I am concerned about the power. Those bulbs are 5 Watts each, and they're spaced 12" apart. It's about 60' around the tree once, and they stay that wide about half way up. 4 rounds would be about 1200 Watts. Of course the rounds would get smaller as they go higher, but 40' high spaced 12" apart would probably be about 30 rounds. 1,800 bulbs, 9000 Watts -- or 81.8 amps. (per tree).

[dsenette]

*dsenette thinks admin needs to plant smaller trees

[Justin]

A normal electrical outlet can provide 1200 watts, so with the above figures you'll need about 7.5 electrical outlets.

[boomercj]

Spray paint the tree with different color glow in the dark paint?