So you bought gutter guards to keep your gutters clean and to avoid having to get back up on the ladder yourself, but now you’re going to get back up on the ladder anyway to hang Christmas lights. At K-Guard Rocky Mountains we highly advise against doing this and hiring someone to hang them for you, but if you’re the Clark Griswold type who takes great pride in doing the task yourself, then this blog has some good tips on what works and what doesn’t work in regards to hanging Christmas lights on gutters with gutter guards.

The first thing you need to do is determine what type of protection you have on your gutters. Is it a screen, helmet, filter, or a hooded guard? For all practical purposes, let’s start with a mesh screen. 

If you have a mesh screen on top of your gutters with holes big enough to poke a paper clip through then I recommend metal Christmas Hooks that you poke through the holes of your screen. The other end of the hook hangs down in front of the gutter and supports the Christmas light wire. At K-Guard Rocky Mountains we advise against installing any sort of screen on top of your gutters as they are a waste of time and money and require the same amount of maintenance, if not more, than having nothing at all, but a screen with holes big enough to poke a paper clip through is much easier to hang lights from than a micro mesh filter.

How Can You Install Christmas Hooks on a Micro Mesh Filter? 

You can’t. The holes are too small, that’s why it’s called micro mesh. There are other options besides the hooks though, none of which are a very good option; one of the reasons it’s advisable to stay away from micro mesh filter screens when selecting clog-free protection for your home. 

The first option is a clip that fastens to the edge of your shingle. There’s a special pole that can be used to clamp the clip on the shingle edge from the ground, but it’s easier said than done because gutters are usually 5 inches wide and it’s hard to see the shingle edge from the ground. It’s also a bad idea to clip anything to the edge of your shingle as it can cause damage. In the colder months, asphalt shingles are more brittle, and clamping a plastic clip to the edge of one could cause a cracking and crumbling effect that could eventually lead to water getting behind your drip edge and damaging your fascia wood. It’s always a good idea never to disturb your shingle edge. 

Another way the Christmas lights can be mounted on gutters with a micro-mesh filter is with adhesive clips on the outside of the gutter, but when the holidays are over, and you take the lights down, you have a bunch of tacky-looking plastic clips stuck to the outside of your gutter that get cooked in the summer sun and don’t work the next winter. If you ever decide to take them off, be prepared to remove the cooked-on adhesive tape that held the clip to the gutter. You might as well save some time and money and just duct tape the lights to the outside of your gutter, it won’t look any less tacky there, Cousin Eddie. The best way to install Christmas lights on a gutter with a micro-mesh screen filter is to never put a micromesh screen filter on top of your gutters, to begin with. …..or just use duct tape. 

Magnetic Clips are Advertised Online, but Most Gutters are Made of Aluminum and Aluminum isn’t magnetic. 

If you had steel gutters it would work, or even a steel roof, but most American homes have asphalt shingle roofs with aluminum gutters. 

How Do You Install Christmas Lights on Gutters with a Helmet or Hood? 

The best way to install Christmas lights on gutters with a helmet or a hood is to use an “S” style hook that can be slid in between the gutter lip and the hood and hung from the gutter lip. You can usually find 100 packs of metal ones for cheap, but I don’t recommend metal as it could scratch the paint if installed improperly. The best hooks that I have seen used with helmet and hooded gutter systems such as Gutter Helmet, Leaf Guard, and K-Guard are plastic “S” shaped Christmas light clip hooks from Geegoods; 100 for $9.99 on Amazon. They easily slide in between the hood and the lip of the gutter and aren’t abrasive against the paint. 

Be careful when hanging anything from the lip of your gutter and not all of them are designed the same way. The one-piece, seamless design of the Leaf Guard gutter, which includes the gutter and hood carefully bent into a patented shape, uses a bookshelf-style bracket hanger to mount the gutters to the fascia. While the bracket supports the hood and the back of the gutter, the trough is left suspended with only the end caps to support it.  If you hang anything of weight from the Leaf Guard gutter lip you can kink the metal and void the warranty.

Similarly, K-Guard gutters come with both a gutter and hood in a patented shape, but instead of a bookshelf-style bracket hanger, the K-Guard bracket hanger supports both the gutter trough and the hood and is secured during installation. Each hanger is spaced 24 inches apart and supports 75 pounds each, it comes with a lifetime guarantee never to pull away from your home. 

Simplify Your Holidays with K-Guard Gutters! 

The best combination of installing gutters with a guard and hanging Christmas lights with ease is to have K-Guard gutters installed on your home and hang your lights with plastic Christmas light clip hooks made by Geegoods, sold on Amazon. 

Contact us today and have one of our specialists come out for a free evaluation and estimate on your home.