Christmas Light Installation in Forsyth County, GA

Forsyth County, Georgia: Cumming, Lake Lanier and the GA 400 Corridor

First, a note on geography, because search engines mix this up. This site covers Forsyth County in north Georgia, where Cumming is the county seat and the only incorporated city. It does not cover the city of Forsyth in Monroe County, south of Atlanta. If your address is in Cumming, or you live in the parts of the county that carry an Alpharetta, Suwanee, Duluth or Gainesville mailing address, you are in the right place.

Forsyth Christmas Lights is a referral service. We collect your request and pass it to an independent holiday lighting company that serves the county. The installer handles your design, quote and scheduling. What follows is a practical guide to the questions that come up most in this county, and the first one is nearly always the HOA.

HOA Rules Come First

Many Forsyth County subdivisions are governed by a homeowners association, from master-planned communities like Vickery to golf and swim-tennis neighborhoods such as Windermere, Polo Golf and Country Club, St. Marlo and Laurel Springs. Georgia HOA attorneys list time limits on holiday decorations among the rules a board may adopt, and management companies in the state encourage boards to set clear start and end dates.

Rules are different in every community, but these are the ones that show up most often:

• Display window: one Georgia example cited by a statewide management company allows decorations from Thanksgiving to January 15. Others use 30 days before the holiday and two weeks after.
• Hours: some communities ask that lights be off late at night. A timer handles this.
• Style: limits on brightness, flashing or animated displays, inflatables, or anything attached to common-area property.

Read your covenants or email your management company before you approve a design. Then give your installer the dates. If your window opens at Thanksgiving, many of your neighbors want that same week, so it pays to get on an installer's calendar early.

The HOA holiday lighting guide for Forsyth County goes deeper, with a section for boards planning entrance and clubhouse lighting.

Lake Lanier Homes and Docks

About 30 percent of Lake Lanier lies in Forsyth County, and lake houses have two fronts: the street side and the water side. Many owners light the lake-facing roofline and deck rails so the house can be seen from the water. Tell the installer if that is what you want, since it changes both the footage and the access.

Docks are a separate matter. Lake Lanier is operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, private docks are permitted under its shoreline management program, and docks with electrical service must meet the Corps' electrical requirements, certified by a Georgia-licensed electrician. Before adding any lighting at the dock, check your permit conditions or ask the Corps' Lake Lanier project office. Most installers will keep their work on the house and yard unless you confirm the dock is cleared for it.

Lease or Own: How Installer Packages Work

There are two business models, and you will likely see both in quotes.

Lease, full service. The company owns the lights. It designs the layout, fits strands to your roofline, installs, repairs during the season, removes and stores everything. You pay one seasonal price. Ask how the price changes in later years if the design stays the same. Several national franchises work only this way and will not install customer-supplied lights.

Customer-owned. You buy the lights, either from the installer or on your own, and pay for labor to install and remove them each year. Storage is your job. It can cost less over time, but you carry the replacement cost when strands fail.

Ask every installer which model the quote uses, whether takedown and storage are included, and how service calls work if a section goes out.

Thinking about permanent lights instead?

Permanent, track-mounted LED systems are a different product with a different price. HomeGuide lists $20 to $40 per linear foot installed, or $2,000 to $8,000 for a typical home, and Angi's Atlanta guide puts the average near $4,340. Check your HOA's architectural rules first, because a permanent fixture usually needs approval in a way that seasonal lights do not.