Yeah it looks like an early 20th century 1920s Craftsman style home. (1905-1929) It’s likely made of extremely high quality old growth wood and a rather lovely home to live in if well maintained.
> it looks like an early 20th century 1920s Craftsman style home
As you're likely aware, American Craftsman is an architectural style inspired by the Arts and Crafts Movement.[1] In an historical double entendre, "Craftsman" can mean something else entirely, and yet can still be American Craftsman, as this home is. These particular style American Craftsman home in particular, among the many types of American Craftsman, with the front covered porch on the short end of the rectangular shape, were sold out of the Sears Catalog.[2] Sears Craftsman... get it? Sears sold various architectural styles, such as Cape Cod, but I think far and away the most popular was their American Craftsman home kits, which the OP's home appears to be. Not all Sears kit homes were American Craftsman, and not all American Craftsman homes are Sears kit homes. But a lot of them are both.
It’s probably galvanized steel which people still use. Copper is common where I live as is aluminum but it wouldn’t be weird to see galvanized steel either.
Most likely the roofing people replaced with like material where possible. That’s a fairly common choice on old homes, unless the old material is unsafe, not good, or impossible to source.
I love homes from this era! The quality of the materials, at least among the homes still standing, is often excellent. This is anecdotal, but I find that they also tend to have a lot of natural light and stay cooler in the summer.
Yeah they’re great if maintained. They do tend to have a lot of windows (and larger windows) than typical modern homes. I suspect it’s because windows are expensive and the homes still standing were generally the higher quality homes of the era. Also - no AC back then so windows were very much functional appliances.
Double hung sash windows are especially popular in this era because they are designed to maximize airflow. You’d open the bottom sash’s on the cool side of the house to let cooler air in and open the top sash’s on the other side to let hot air out. This also creates an airflow across the home.
Yeah I’ve done extensive work on the house and anywhere that’s original is in great shape. All the wood is old growth. It had termite damage at one point but the termites only ate areas where newer (lesser quality) wood was used.
Heck, even the mirror in the bathroom opens and closes perfectly and it’s 110 yrs old.
The downsides are there was zero insulation in the walls when we bought it and the leaded glass windows are single pane. I’ve mostly fixed the insulation problem but the windows will always be pretty to look at but inefficient.
Nice work! We are putting up our lights too. I like the bulbs on the string lights to be regularly spaced and oriented. One can buy plastic clips that latch onto roof gutters or shingles to hold the cone bulbs in a fixed orientation and spacing
Unfortunately, I can only hang my lights around the facade made of plaster (stipple), brick and wood. I don't want to tarnish the facade with hooks or nails and want a solution that can be reattached each holiday season without effort. I tried positioning the bulbs with removable clay/putty, hot glue but none of these temporary adhesives worked well.
The solution I settled on involves driving (permanent but relatively inconspicuous) threaded inserts into the facade at wide spanned intervals - tee-nut inserts [1] for wood and molly bolts for stipple/plaster surfaces [2]. I ordered aluminum bars ($1 per foot on Grainger) that will screw into these inserts during the season. These bars will let me use shingle clips to hold the light bulbs in the desired fixed span and orientation. For Halloween, I can attach led light strips to the bars to give more custom lighting effects.
We tried that with some lights we in our bushes thinking it'd be fine to just keep them off, they're not even visible unless you were on our porch with your nose against the bushes looking for them. HOA ended up fining us anyways, nosy fucks.
I actually forgot to mention the funniest part of this story, so at first we only received a warning that we need to take the lights down and so we did immediately that same day. However, apparently they're so inconspicuous that they didn't realize we'd already taken them down and they went ahead and find us anyways two weeks later for not complying with the initial warning. Go figure.
Highly probable, we have a bit of history with the neighbors a few doors down and would not surprise me one bit if they were snooping around the outside of my house for absolutely no good reason and got the random urge to nosefuck my bushes. They're certifiable and have nothing better to do all day.
Long ago I realized that the “cure” that is a HOA is way worse than the disease that is messy neighbors. And with what you save in hoa costs you can buy into a better neighborHood anyway.
The clear plastic in which they are housed (think rope light) will turn yellow and brittle after a season of sun. Places like Florida, might have to replace due to sun degradation.
As an added bonus, many have an array of color options, which makes it easy to change the lights to suit Halloween, Easter, Independence Day, or any other holiday you want your house to observe.
If you're doing a new build are there products out there that are more nature-proof? (eg. like would be used in permanent commercial displays)? Or countersunk into solid material?
While I share an affinity for magnets and their utility, I too was hoping for more zazz like a crossbow and/or Batman type over-engineering. Anything to keep me off a ladder is a safety value-add in my book.
In North Texas a guy who broke his leg went in for routine surgery to fix him up, his oxygen dropped and he is now brain dead and was the sole provider for his aging Mother - malpractice suit awarded but she is caring for him the rest of their days because "he is my everything" (loose translation from Spanish).
The two conductors in the wire are insulated separately and sort of lightly attached so it's probably OK if done carefully.
If this was me, I would've threaded the lights through the big triangle piece directly and attached with zip ties, instead of modifying the cord.
> Also, the comment at the end to use "hooks" beats the whole point of using magnets.
Installing a nondescript hook up there would be a one-time use of a ladder which could just be borrowed or rented from somewhere. Future decorations can be done with just the extending pole and magnetic attachment.
Haha, code. IIRC, Christmas lights have their own exception in the NEC, as the things are wildly unsafe by general NEC standards. For example, nothing stops you from plugging a space heater into the outlet at the end of a string. But relax, it's Christmas!
Having said that, OP's lights are built a bit more solid because they look like the 120V parallel-wired style, rather than the series wired tiny lights. I'd be completely comfortable splitting the two conductors down the middle like that. That's exactly what you do to terminate a wire, although doing it in the middle of a cable is trickier because you need to be more accurate. Start the split with a sharp knife at one point, then you should be able to just pull the conductors apart.
For the general idea, I love it and it has me wondering if my gutters are steel. Although part of me wants to permanently hang WS2812 strips and be decorated for every holiday.
Despite the electrical risks, it's crazy how much Christmas safety has improved.
I remember https://i.imgur.com/vKbfzEs.jpg from my childhood. Small metal clips to attach real candles to the Christmas tree. 20-50 open flame candles on a dried out Spruce, one of the best fire starters possible.
Could be worse: use last-year's spruce/fir preserved using glycerine and/or formaldehyde. Try eco-friendly or self-made decoration from real hay, paper, and wood instead of metal or plastic. Use combustible adhesive to bend into form. Also, use candles from bee's wax instead of parrafin or stearin for extra temperature, flame height, and CO. No risk, no fun ;)
It somehow never occurred to me that - obviously the traditional Christmas lights were candles. Unless the original method was to cut at tree, decorate a still wet one for a day, and then toss it - how did anyone ever consider that a good idea?
Why? That looks like a guaranteed way to result in an accident for a pretty minor novelty. If nothing else, using leds that look like candles would be less maintenance with the huge upside that they are incredibly unlikely to be able to start a fire.
Some people in Central Europe still use real candles on the Christmas tree. Of course, you place the candles carefully and don't leave them unattended.
(I have no idea how common it is, but I've seen the candles and brackets for sale.)
It is fairly common in Germany. There’s a special size of candles that fits those holders (Christbaumkerzen) and they’re a thing you’ll find everywhere in shops around Christmas time. I’ve never had a tree with LED in my entire life.
You must observe some safety rules, have a bucket of water or an extinguisher at hand (not under the tree) and never leave the candles unattended. And yes, be careful where you place the candles. Can’t have a branch that’s hanging over them.
If it was a guaranteed accident like you suggest people wouldn't have done it for decades. Not the safest thing, but judging by the news it seems not even close to all the injuries weeks later from fireworks.
I've got to wonder if part of the reason it seems insane is because we've gotten used to single/dual generation households. If you light candles on a tree, then it's a commitment for you or your partner to be in the same room as that tree until the candles are extinguished. But if there is an older generation sitting around to be on firewatch, then it doesn't seem so limiting.
> nothing stops you from plugging a space heater into the outlet at the end of a string.
I think a lot of christmas lights come with unpolarized plugs to make this more challenging. Also the tiny (3amp?) built-in fuses give you an extra level of protection beyond what you'd get with a simple extension cord of similar specs.
> For example, nothing stops you from plugging a space heater into the outlet at the end of a string. But relax, it's Christmas!
IIRC because they're designed to chain but not for high power applications, Christmas cords are one of the few extensions which routinely include a fuse[0], usually 2.5 to 5 amps.
So you can plug a space heater at the end of the string, not much should happen.
As opposed to using a 15A extension to plug a 20A device into a 20A circuit, which you can absolutely do, and which will burn your house down.
[0] in the US, as opposed to the UK where everything includes a fuse because ring circuit baby
Hm, I'm reviewing my copy of the 2011 NEC and can't find the part I remember. I swore I recall reading something that basically carved out exceptions for thin wires for long strings of lights, but maybe I'm misremembering.
Of course, manufactured items aren't actually regulated under the NEC, but rather UL/ETL or another NRTL. Which is why you run your nice 10gauge wire for a dryer, then at the junction panel inside it switches over to 14 ga stranded or whatever. They've done the math with power dissipation, higher temp insulation, etc etc. And if it burns down your house you get to sue the manufacturer.
As an aside, it's a travesty that public.resource.org no longer has the building codes available. If the codes are not available for all to read, they cannot be considered binding law.
Well, they're painted. And you'd think that would still mean rust where they were scratched, cut, etc. But OP's magnets stuck to a drip edge, which I wouldn't think would be made out of plain steel either. I'm assuming my gutters aren't ferromagnetic, but I could be pleasantly surprised!
On US homes, drips are typically galvanized steel because they are a commoditized roofing product.
Gutters are usually aluminum because gutters and downspouts are a specialized trade and those businesses fabricate components on-site from aluminum roll stock to correctly fit the building.
The drip edge on the house, some drip edge I just bought for a shed, and a few different types of unused drip edge I've had sitting around for a decade are all non-ferromagnetic. The stuff I just bought at Home Depot even says "aluminum for light weight".
The gutters have seams and weren't formed on site, but are also non-ferromagnetic. So much for the hope of quick and easy mounting.
If I had to guess - while galvanized steel wouldn't rust on its own, it's avoided due to the possibility of being in contact with other metals that would cause it to still rust. Roofing nails are galvanized, but they're supposed to be dry under the shingles.
Yeah this was the next best option. But I didn’t want to spend any time on the roof and my ladder doesn’t go high enough so went with magnets. Also I wasn’t crazy about having hooks up there all year round, even though I would be the only person to notice them.
The conductors appear to be separately insulated, so this poses no risk. However, it's generally a safe bet that modifying devices or equipment is a no-go. These lights were probably reviewed by a "listing" agency (e.g. Underwriters Laboratories) that's accepted/required by the municipality having jurisdiction and modifying the device invalidates that listing.
It's low risk, but I have to push back against no risk. If someone splits it with a knife there's a plausible chance they nick the insulation by accident.
Yeah, that's fair, but it's low risk if done properly, whereas a lot of the electrical work homeowners get up to introduces risk even if executed as intended :)
Splitting the wire is safe if you’re careful but no it’s not code lol. And it’s just one hook at the peak of the roof but it might be possible w/o it. I didn’t need any hooks.
In the US, there is a substantial probability the flashing is non-magnetic aluminum.
So test first.