Quick answer: No-drill Christmas light installation on cedar shake roofs works by clipping to the fascia, the gutter, or over the shake edge instead of forcing anything under a dry shake tab. Shake splits when you pry it, and a split shake is a callback you pay for. Buy over-edge and gutter-style clips first, and keep shingle tab clips off the truck for these jobs.
Cedar shake roofs scare a lot of contractors, and they should. Shake is dry, brittle wood that splits when you pry it. No-drill Christmas light installation on cedar shake roofs is completely doable, but it is a buying problem before it is a technique problem. Show up with the wrong clip box and you will either damage the roof or spend an hour fighting a run that should take fifteen minutes.
I ran four crews and built a Christmas light install business past $1M a year before selling it in 2018. Shake roofs were the jobs I hand-picked my clip inventory for. Here is what to buy, what to leave in the shop, and how to load the truck so a shake job runs like every other job on the route.
Why does cedar shake need different clips than asphalt shingle?
Cedar shake is thick, dry, and layered with wide gaps between courses. It has no flat tab pocket like an asphalt shingle, so a shingle tab clip has nothing to bite. Force one in and you wedge against wood grain that splits along its length. Shake needs clips that grab an edge or a gutter lip instead.
Asphalt shingles flex. Cedar does not. A shingle that gets a little bent from a clip springs back by January. A cedar shake that cracks stays cracked, and the homeowner sees it every time they pull in the driveway. That is the whole reason your clip selection matters more here than on any other surface.
Age makes it worse. Older shake dries out, curls at the butt end, and gets chalky. A ten-year-old roof takes clips fine. A twenty-five-year-old roof needs you to work off the gutter or fascia and stay out of the field of the roof entirely.
What clips should you buy for a cedar shake roof?
Buy over-edge clip-on styles and gutter clips first. Both grab a hard edge instead of pushing into the wood. Add a small stock of magnetic clips for any metal flashing or drip edge on the house. Skip shingle tab clips entirely on shake work. They are built for a surface shake does not have.
Our full Christmas light clips lineup covers every roof surface, and the Tuff Clips technique guide breaks down each style by how it bites. For shake specifically, here is how the common options sort out.
| Clip style | Cedar shake fit | Where it grabs | Buy for shake? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Over-edge clip-on | Strong | Butt edge of the shake course or fascia edge | Yes, primary |
| Gutter clip | Strong | Gutter lip, no roof contact | Yes, primary |
| Magnetic clip | Situational | Metal flashing, drip edge, metal trim | Small backup stock |
| Shingle tab clip | Poor | Needs an asphalt tab pocket | No |
| All-in-one wedge style | Situational | Best on asphalt, gutters, some edges | Only where an edge exists |
The buying lesson is simple. On a shake house you are buying edge-grabbing hardware, not surface-penetrating hardware. Order two clip styles for these jobs, not five.
How many clips should you stock per shake job?
Stock enough of both primary styles to run the entire roofline in either one. You will not know the exact mix until you are on the ladder looking at the gutter line and the shake condition. A crew that has to drive back to the shop for a different clip box just lost the profit on the job.
Which bulbs and wire hold up best on shake rooflines?
Run standard contractor C9 LED on SPT socket wire, same as any roofline. The bulb choice is not about the shake. It is about the house. Shake homes usually have deep browns, heavy trim, and lots of natural texture, which reads best under warm tones rather than cool blue-white.
Warm white sits well against cedar because the wood already carries brown and amber. Cool white can make an aged shake roof look gray and flat. If you are deciding on a color program for the neighborhood, our breakdown of warm white versus cool white walks through how each reads from the street.
Bulb finish matters too. Faceted, filament, smooth, and shatterproof all throw light differently on a textured roofline. The C9 bulb finishes comparison covers which ones deserve truck space. For the bulbs themselves, our C9 and C7 LED bulb collection is contractor-grade stock, not big-box strands.
Buying tip: order clips, bulbs, socket wire, and plugs as one matched system. A pro light kit removes the guesswork of matching spacing to bulb count before shake season starts.
What ladder and safety gear do shake roofs require?
Shake roofs are slick when damp and they shed loose fibers under your boots. Buy aluminum ladders, not fiberglass. Aluminum is lighter, and fiberglass does not save you if it is wet and you touch a live line. Add a harness and roof anchor kit, because OSHA requires them over 6 feet.
The core pair is a 32-foot aluminum extension ladder and a 24-foot aluminum extension ladder. Those two cover most residential shake homes. For porches, entryways, two-story staircases, and odd angles, buy a Little Giant multi-position ladder instead of a traditional step ladder.
For steep shake, Cougar Paws boots are the call. They grip where a work boot slides. Source them through ChristmasLights.io/shoe. If you want to stay off the field of the roof entirely, work the whole run from the ladder along the gutter line and never set a boot on the shake at all.
- 32-foot aluminum extension ladder plus a 24-foot aluminum extension ladder as the core pair
- Little Giant multi-position ladder for porches, entryways, two-story staircases, and odd angles
- Safety harness and roof anchor kit, required over 6 feet under OSHA
- Cougar Paws boots for steep-roof work
- One 50-gallon garbage can to hold pre-bulbed, pre-clipped strings on install day
How do you prep strings so shake jobs go fast?
Pre-bulb and pre-clip every string at the shop, never on the roof. Ladder time is the expensive part of a shake job, and fumbling clips at the top of a 32-foot ladder is how crews get hurt and slow. Drop the finished strings into one 50-gallon garbage can and carry that can to the job.
The workflow is the same one my crews ran every day. Can to the truck, truck to the job site, can to the ladder, pull strings out at the install. One can, not six totes. Totes are for off-season storage, not install day.
Do not cut strings to length before you arrive. It wastes wire and locks the crew into the wrong length. That mistake hurts extra on shake because the roofline often has more jogs, dormers, and irregular edges than an asphalt tract home, and you want the freedom to cut on site.
- Pre-bulb and pre-clip the strings at the shop with your shake-appropriate clips already attached.
- Drop the finished strings into a 50-gallon garbage can, coiled in the order they will come out.
- Carry the can to the truck, then the truck to the job site.
- Set the can at the base of the ladder and pull strings out as you climb.
- Cut to length on site, at the run, after you see the actual roofline.
What should you check before you quote a shake roof?
Walk the perimeter and look at three things: gutter condition, shake age, and how much of the roofline has an accessible edge. Those three decide whether the job is a straightforward gutter run or a slow, careful edge-clip job. Quote the labor accordingly before you promise a price.
Aged, curling shake with no gutters is the hardest version of this job. Continuous gutters on a single-story shake home is the easiest. Most houses land in the middle, and knowing which one you are looking at before you write the number is what keeps the job profitable.
| Roof condition | Primary clip plan | Labor impact |
|---|---|---|
| Newer shake, full gutters | Gutter clips end to end | Standard, fast |
| Newer shake, partial gutters | Gutter clips plus over-edge clips | Slightly slower |
| Aged or curling shake, no gutters | Over-edge clips on fascia only | Slowest, quote extra time |
| Shake with metal flashing sections | Magnetic clips on the metal runs | Standard |
Materials cost only, at contractor-grade pricing, runs $1.50 to $2.00 per linear foot. That number does not change because the roof is shake. What changes is labor, and labor is where a shake job either makes money or eats your day.
How do you avoid callbacks on cedar shake?
Callbacks on shake come from two places: clips that pop off a curling edge and connections that fail in the wet. Both are preventable at the buying stage. Buy clips that grip a hard edge, and buy quality socket wire and plugs so your connections hold through the season.
Set the clip spacing tighter on aged shake than you would on asphalt. More clips means less load on each one, and less chance a single popped clip drops a whole section. Our guide to handling service calls without killing profit covers how to price and schedule the ones you still get.
Photograph the roof before you touch it. Any pre-existing split shake gets documented on day one. That habit saved my crews more than one argument, and good photos sell the next job too. Our post on photographing installs shows how to shoot them so they sell.
I came into this trade from firefighting, and that background stuck with me on roof work. You plan the exit before you go in. On shake, that means deciding from the ground how much of the roof you actually have to step on. Usually the answer is less than you think.
What does a shake-ready truck loadout look like?
Keep it lean. Two clip styles in volume, a small magnetic backup box, pre-built strings in the 50-gallon can, both aluminum extension ladders, the Little Giant, and your harness kit. That is a shake-ready truck. Everything else is weight you carry for no reason.
- Over-edge clip-on style, bulk quantity
- Gutter clips, bulk quantity
- Magnetic clips, small backup box for flashing runs
- Pre-bulbed and pre-clipped strings in one 50-gallon can
- 32-foot and 24-foot aluminum extension ladders plus the Little Giant
- Harness and roof anchor kit
- Cougar Paws boots for steep sections
I now run ChristmasLights.io, a free community and training program for over 43,000 Christmas light contractors, and shake roofs come up every season. The contractors who handle them well are not doing anything exotic. They bought the right two clips and stopped trying to make a shingle clip work on wood.
Ready to stock up for the season?
Frequently asked questions
can you put christmas lights on a cedar shake roof without damaging it
Yes, as long as you stay off the field of the roof and clip to an edge. Gutter clips and over-edge clip-on styles hold the run without pressing anything into the wood. The damage happens when contractors force shingle tab clips into shake courses and split the wood along the grain.
what clips work best on cedar shake roofs
Over-edge clip-on styles and gutter clips are the two to buy. Both grab a hard edge instead of penetrating the shake surface. Keep a small stock of magnetic clips for any metal flashing or drip edge on the house. Shingle tab clips should stay in the shop for shake jobs.
do you need a harness to install christmas lights on a shake roof
OSHA requires a safety harness and roof anchor kit on roofs over 6 feet, and that applies to shake the same as any other surface. Shake gets slick when damp and sheds loose fiber underfoot. Cougar Paws boots are the recommended footwear for steep-roof work.
why do cedar shake roofs take longer to install christmas lights on
Shake homes often have more dormers, jogs, and irregular roofline edges than a standard asphalt house, and aged shake forces you to work carefully off the fascia or gutter instead of moving quickly across the roof. Plan the extra labor time into the quote before you give a price.
should you pre-clip christmas light strings for a shake roof job
Always. Pre-bulb and pre-clip at the shop, then drop the finished strings into a 50-gallon garbage can and carry that can to the job. Attaching clips at the top of a 32-foot ladder is slow and unsafe. Do not cut the strings to length until you are on site.