If you'll leave your festoon lights outside permanently, and some of the festoon light spans you want to run are over 5 meters, then using a wire hanging kit is a great idea.
Why?
Because when you hang festoon lights outdoors, they cop a beating from the weather, wind, or pesky children kicking balls. And the last thing you want is for your festoon lights to come crashing down, smash, explode, and shatter. Moreover, you don't want the festoon light cable to break.
Even if you've got a covered patio area or garden space, having multiple attachment points for your festoon lights is a great idea so your light bulbs stay safe.
So, how do you hang festoon lights without buying a heap of specialist tools, wire cutters, lock clamps, and whatever else?
Pull up a seat and let me show you, in this fast-to-read article, how to quickly and easily hang your festoon lights.
- Access The Area You Want To Hang Your Festoon Lights
The first thing you’ll want to do with beer in hand is look at the area where you want to hang your Festoon Lights.
Are you attaching to an existing structure like timber, brick, concrete, poles, or trees?
Here's why this is important:
If you're attaching to concrete or brink, you'll need a wall plug to hold an eye screw in place. Or maybe you'll use some Dyna-bolt.
Our string light suspension kit has wall plugs for attaching the 40mm eye screws to brick or concrete. If you're attaching to timber, you drill a small pilot hole, then screw the eye-screw in.
Don't hang festoon lights off anything that may fall over.
What pattern do you want to hang lights on?
When it comes to hanging festoon lights, there are a few different patterns you can hang your lights in.
You could get creative with any of the following patterns:
- Zig-zagging
- Straight up and down
- Cross-over
- Fan pattern
- Around the border
- Hanging from a tree
- Coming out from one corner of the building
- V-Shape
- W-Shape
Or maybe you'd like the festoon lighting to spell out the initials of your name. (Call me, and we'll bespoke your name in lights.)
The best way to work out your festoon lighting pattern is to roughly draw your area onto a piece of paper, then start adding lines to the page. Play with the patterns until you get something you love.
- Attach Your Anchor Points Your Eye-Screws
Once you’ve worked out where you want to start and finish your Festoon lighting and what pattern you're using, you can install mounting hardware by attaching eye screws.
Once your anchor point is attached, like in the picture below, you then pull the stainless-steel cable through these eye screws. We use a 1.6mm cable wire.
- Attach Your Stainless-Steel Wire Cable And Tighten
At one end of the stainless-steel wire we supply, there’s a loop already made for you. You’ll attach that loop to the turnbuckle we supply. Then, you've got an easy way to tighten up the line.
Thread your cable through your eye screws.
To secure it at the other end, we supply a Quicklink. The Quicklink locks the stainless-steel cable in place for you, so you don’t have to swage it.
The Quicklink has a rachet system inside of it. You feed the cable in one side, then back through the other, and the rachet system stops the wire cable from coming back out. Yes, it's handy because no tools are required.
You then pull the wire cable as tight as you want it. You can always use your turnbuckle to tighten the stainless-steel wire cable a little more.
You can see the Quicklink in the photo right below.
- Attach Your Festoon Cable
You attach the Festoon Lighting cable to the steel wire using cable ties, then cut off the excess cable tie so it's nice and neat.
Some people like to tie the festoon cable between light bulb sockets and the cable wire, keeping the lines neat and tidy.
You can use snap hooks instead of cable ties; snap hooks stand out, and cable ties vanish into the black festoon cable. Use what makes you happy with your string lights.
- Put Your Bulbs In
You're getting close now to enjoying the soft glow of beautiful festoon lighting in your outdoor area.
When it comes to screwing in the light bulbs...
Make sure the bulbs screw in so it’s nice and tight. When the bulbs are tight, they form a waterproof seal with the festoon lights socket.
If the bulbs aren't tight enough, you'll know about it after it's rained and you've got water in your light bulbs.
Once all your light bulbs are in, you can turn on your festoon lights and enjoy your beautiful entertaining area.
If you’re going to leave your Festoon lights up permanently, the way I've just shown you how to hang your Festoon lights is an easy way to hang them.
And if you've got our kit with all the parts, it's even easier.
What Happens If You Don't Use A Kit To Hang Festoon Lights
Our Festoon lights hanging kits contain everything you need to attach your string lights.
The eye-screws go into timber, concrete, and brick surfaces. The turnbuckle and Quicklink make attaching and tightening your cable wire easy.
If you want to use trees or poles or anything else as anchor points get in contact with us and we can make it up for you or show you how to do it.
The thing is...
The last thing you want is to find your bulbs hanging down in your garden or patio because you hung your festoon lights without any support cable.
Festoon lights create a beautiful focal point in your outdoor entertaining area, so you want to make sure you've set them up well and they stay in place.
You can buy your Festoon Hanging Kit right here.
What About Solar Festoon Lights?
There are no reported cases that I'm aware of with solar festoon lights outlasting 24V low voltage or 240V festoon lights.
Is that environmentally friendly if you're throwing solar festoon lights out every few years because they failed?
What If My Outdoor Area Has Nowhere To Attach Festoon Lights Too?
You can create tall supports for the festoon lights by cementing a 4-inch post into a bucket or big pot. Yes, it's a little extra work. However, you've now got somewhere to hang your festoon lights off.
Here is a quick video from me on how you can hang festoon lights. If you need more information, I am always there to help.
We Supply Festoon Hanging Kits With All The Parts You Need
Our Festoon hanging kits have everything you need to attach to timber, concrete and brick surfaces.
Contact us for tree poles or anything else, and we can make it up for you.