Permanent lighting costs $25.00 a foot installed, every day, plus $345 for the Sentinel controller.
Nine questions about money, answered with the numbers rather than around them. If yours is not on this page, call me on (720) 986-9449 and I will give you the arithmetic over the phone.
15 daysA written quote from the free visit stays good
01
How much does permanent lighting cost in Colorado?
Permanent lighting costs $25.00 a foot installed, every day, plus $345 for the Sentinel controller. A roofline of 40 to 620 ft works out at $1,345 to $15,845 installed, controller included.
That is the installed price, not a starting point. There is no minimum job, so a short run is priced on its own arithmetic instead of being rounded up to a package, and the written quote from the free on-site visit stays good for 15 days whether you buy or not.
02
What does the installed price per foot include?
The $25.00 a foot covers the channel, the RGBW LEDs inside it, the color match to your trim and the labor to put it up. The controller is the one line that is not per foot: $345 for the Sentinel controller, one to a system.
On install day the crew mounts the channel, hides the wiring, cleans up the yard, and programs your first scenes with you before leaving. After that everything is covered for five years, labor included, with free service visits inside those five years.
Channel, painted to your trim. A Sherwin-Williams reader goes on your fascia and returns the exact paint ID, and the channel is sprayed that color in our own five station booth.
RGBW LEDs and the wiring. The wiring is hidden on install day, and the corner connectors are printed to match so the run reads as one line rather than a row of white joints.
The install itself. Mounting, wiring, cleanup, and your first scenes programmed with you before the crew leaves.
Five years of warranty. The LEDs, the channel, the controller, the wiring and the labor, with free service visits inside those five years.
Not in the per-foot rate. The Sentinel controller at $345, our own smart controller, and a motion sensor, priced at the visit, because the requirement varies by install.
Is permanent lighting cheaper than paying for Christmas lights every year?
It costs more once and then it stops. A seasonal install runs about $4.15 a foot every year, for as long as you keep doing it, and permanent lighting is $25.00 a foot one time. Divide the one-time rate by the yearly one and you have the year it crosses over.
The Sentinel controller is a fixed line on top of the per-foot arithmetic, so it pushes that crossover year later, and later the shorter your roofline is. The money is only part of it. A seasonal display is a crew on your roof twice a year and a take-down deadline to meet, while a permanent system is installed once, stays up, and never breaks a take-down deadline because there is nothing to take down. It is also covered for five years, labor included.
04
How much does permanent lighting cost for a typical two-story home?
A second story does not change the rate, because permanent lighting is priced per foot of roofline rather than per floor. Set your front, then tick the sides you want lit and they add to it. A typical 2,000 sq ft home: 140 ft front, 120 back, 85 each side. That is 430 ft of roofline, which at $25.00 a foot comes to $11,095, with the Sentinel controller included.
A second story can still change the written quote: a steep pitch, a third story or a gable that needs staging all take longer and carry more risk, which is why the on-site visit exists. Run your own footage through the calculator above and you have the arithmetic before anyone comes out.
05
Do permanent lighting installers charge per foot?
Yes. A linear foot of roofline is the unit, and ours is $25.00 a foot installed with the controller added once at $345. Two houses of the same square footage can carry very different rooflines, so the footage is measured rather than assumed.
Per foot is what makes an estimate checkable before anyone visits: footage times rate, plus one controller. It is also the number to ask any installer for, along with what it covers. Ours covers the channel, the LEDs, the color match and the labor, and the written quote that follows the on-site visit prices the difficulty as well as the footage.
06
What makes one permanent lighting estimate more expensive than another?
Footage first, then difficulty. Two roofs of the same length can price differently on pitch, height, access, where the power has to come from, and what the crew has to stage to reach the run.
The other half of the gap is what the estimate covers. Ours includes the color match, because some installers ship white channel and hope you do not look up. Ask what the warranty covers and whether the labor is inside it, and ask whether everyone going on your roof carries workers' comp, because if an uninsured crew gets hurt on your property it can land on your homeowner's policy.
Is it cheaper to install permanent lighting yourself?
We price the job installed, so there is no materials-only number here to set against it. The parts that never appear on a parts list are the ones that decide it: the channel is color matched to your fascia in our own booth, the five year warranty covers the labor as well as the parts, and everyone who goes on your roof carries workers' comp.
The color match is the hardest piece to reproduce at home. A Sherwin-Williams reader returns the exact paint ID, the channel is sprayed that color in a five station booth, and the corner connectors are printed to match, so the run reads as one continuous line instead of a row of white joints. If you already own a controller, the LED setup material in our knowledge base is public and free to read.
How much does it cost to run permanent lights for a year?
About $119 a year, or $9.95 a month, for a typical 430 ft house. That is 682 watts drawing 4 hours a night, 995 kWh over a year, at 12 cents a kWh. The pucks sit about 10 inches apart at 1.3 watts each, which is 1.58 watts a foot.
The bigger number is the one nobody quotes: whether the system is genuinely off when it looks off. Ours disconnects the LED load through a solid state relay and sits at 0.003 watts standby, less than an LED night light. Ask whoever quotes you the same question, because a system that is off in software only stays energized at full standby while the house looks dark, and it spends its rated LED hours doing it. At 4 hours a night a 100,000 hour LED runs for 68 years, and twenty of those years use 29% of it.
Twenty years of running cost, an always-on system against ours, on a 193 ft system. Built at 12 cents a kWh, the local rate, with an always-on system drawing 24 hours a day against ours drawing about 4. The dotted line is 100% of a 100,000 hour LED life, taken from the manufacturer datasheet. Every controller behaves differently, so ask any supplier what theirs does before you sign.
When is the cheapest time to book permanent lighting?
The rate does not move with the season: $25.00 a foot installed, year round. There is no cheaper month to call.
What the calendar does change is the date you can get. Lead times stretch through the October to December peak, which is when our own crew is joined by trusted subcontractors to keep install dates, under the same workers' comp requirement. Book outside that window and you have more dates to choose from.
Run it on your own roofline
Price your own roofline.
Set your front roofline anywhere from 40 to 620 ft, then tick the sides you want lit and each one adds its own footage on top. It prices the whole run at $25.00 a foot with the Sentinel controller added once.
It is an estimate. The written quote comes from the on-site visit, priced on difficulty and actual footage, and it stays good for 15 days whether you buy or not.
