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Outdoor Rope LightsThe joy of outdoor rope lights is never clearer than at Christmas, when houses that look like they contain the most sober individuals possible the rest of the year suddenly start trailing large quantaties of Christmas rope lights outside their homes! At Christmas time it becomes very evident why outdoor rope lights can be such a great addition to the outside decor of your home, because they can very rapidly change a very drab exterior into one that brightens up not only the outside of the house, but also the hearts of those who see it. The good news is that these don’t have to be predictable either, because there is now a wide range of choice in the type of lights that you can pick both in terms of the color choices, and in terms of the technology that stands behind them. The key thing to remember with rope lighting is that they are designed to create an overall impression because of the sheer scale that they can illuminate. They differ from many other types of lighting in that there is no one central light or architectural design that anyone is looking at. Instead, it is the overall impression that a string of lights can make when you wrap them around a tree, your roof or a yard post that make it a talking point. In other words, outdoor rope lights are really more about making OTHER items look good and bringing out their features, than they are about making a statement in their own right. This is great because it means that the only limit on how good they can look is the limit of your own imagination, because the lights themselves are very simply constructed of a string of bulbs, which each tend to give about half a watt of illumination and are strung together in a row in varying lengths. Each of the strings of bulbs can be different colors if you so desire, and so it is perfectly acceptable to mix and match them to form a perfect combination. In fact, if you get several different colored strings (say 4) then you can form quite a kaleidoscope of colors. This is what many people do at Christmas time, because they will get a tree that they can display in their backyards, and then put several strings of lights around it so that it looks properly illuminated in many different colors. The effect is very striking, and turns a relatively cheap Christmas tree into something that can be a real eye-catcher, and the center of attention in a community that people actually drive by in their cars to see! One of the good things that you don’t have to worry about with outdoor rope lights is that the bulbs won’t last, because modern bulbs are now designed to last for periods in excess of 25,000 hours (the equivalent of several years even if you left them on twenty four hours a day). And as most of these kinds of bulbs are only used for a few hours each night, in practice many of these strings of bulbs can last comfortably for fifteen years or more, without having to be replaced. It used to be the case that these kind of bulbs would have screw in fittings, and that could on occasion be a challenge, because if one of the fittings came loose in just one of the bulbs, then you could often have the nightmare scenario of having to screw in ALL of the 50 foot row of bulbs, simply to find the one that was causing you problems! Thankfully though those days are now firmly behind us, and the rope lights that you now buy generally come with bulbs that are in sealed units, so there is never an occasion where if one bulb has issues, that the whole lot have to be changed or checked. You will generally find that outdoor rope lights come with a power connector, power cord and a wide array of fixing pins so that you can easily attach them outside; and they are specifically designed for use outside so the lights are designed for normal weather conditions without the threat of the electrical problems that you would have if you strung a string of indoor lights to the outside. Another key feature that sets them apart from other kinds of lighting is that they generally come built into malleable strings that can be bent and shaped in different ways. This means for example that it is as easy to create a design in the lights up the side of a tree, as it is to drape them over your roof or front wall. There are a wide variety of uses that you can put outdoor rope lights to; the only limit is your imagination and the number of strands of rope lights that you can afford to buy! Top of Page---> Outdoor Rope Lights Return to Christmas Lights and Decorations Home Page---> Outdoor Lighting Magic
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