Wrapping a 40ft evergreen

[colawn]

How would you guys go about this? I do not have a bucket. The base is 18-20 and 40ft tall. How do you keep your lines straight?

[David Gretzmier]

standing on a 16ft stepladder and using a 16 foot pole, you still can't reach the top. This project requires renting a boom from a rental company, probably a 45foot straight or knuckle. It costs around 650 per day here for everything including delivery. I would charge 2500 to light that tree with 10,000 mini-lights. and that is probably cheap. but a really cool looking tree when done.

[turf hokie]

Definately need a bucket truck. Although I would not go near a tree that big with mini lights. I would use about 800-1000 c-9's on 24 & 36" spacings. Charge would be in the same range as David.
As far as straight lines....in trees I consider them a no no.

If you are not using LED then you need to consider power sources. Going to need at least 4 circuits whether you use c-9 or mini.

If you are using LED then you may want to pad your price a little to account for the additional bulb cost.

[bill8379]

I did about a 30 ft tree, I do it every year and it keeps getting taller. I told the guy he needs to hire a bucket truck next year.

I had to use a 16 ft telescopic pole, I duck taped an 8 ft 2x4 at the base and duck taped a light light broom on the extended part, lol. I did it though. Took two of us about 45 min and I only charged $80. The lights were his, mini lights on spools. Lots of little blue lights.

I seen a couple 40 ft trees that were done with a boom and LED's. They wrapped the branches going up and down rather then around and around.

[David Gretzmier]

10,000 mini's would run around 30 amps, which would max out 2 20 amp circuits. I'm not a big fan of c-7's or c-9s on big trees, but then I don't do many. I'd rather tight wrap a few trees with 2000-3000 mini's in each tree than do one big one.

using a bucket truck I have seen large trees done on the cheap with straight lines up and down and trunk tight wrapped, maybe just 8-10 tight spaced( 2 inch spaced mini's ) light lines up to top and down to trunk. probably 1600-2000 mini's per tree. really a pretty good look. not my preferance, but can look nice when 10 trees are done on sides of driveway or at subdivision entrance.