Repairing Christmas Displays

When All American Christmas Co. got started we mainly focused at selling lights to cities and businesses for large decorating jobs, and during the season we sold (and still do sell) countless screw in C7 and C9 bulbs for repairing large Christmas Displays. Most displays are put up late november and are burning for many hours and since incandescent bulbs have a bulb life from 2,500 or 3,000 hours their life gets eaten up pretty quick during the season. Inevitably bulbs burn out and break after being moved in and out of storage so it's a good plan to have spare bulbs in the colors you need on hand.

For the most part repairing displays be it Pole Mounted pieces, Ground mount, or building mount is fairly straight forward.

• Give any display a once over before you put power to it, any broken bulbs should be removed (wear gloves when dealing with broken glass) and make sure the cord has no cuts or breaks that could cause a short.
• After you check the bulbs and wire plug the display in, note any burned out bulbs and remove them. Adjust the wire if it's shifted to create a uniform appearance, if sockets have loosened affix them to the frame with new tape or zip ties.
• Once the displays is completely reviewed you can begin to replace the bulbs that were shot, now one caveat new Incandescent bulbs are almost always brighter and whiter (for clear anyway) than bulbs that have been up for a season or two. Some times this can create brighter spots on a display but if you need to get it up and lit it's usually not a huge deal, just be aware of it
• Always test your displays before you get on a job or hang them up because of Murphy's Law, what can go wrong will go wrong. And being able to stay on top of potential problems will help alleviate headaches down the road.

Now incandescent lights will have be repaired and replaced every season, thats the nature of the beast. Most cities are making the switch to LED bulbs. LED C7 and C9 bulbs let you use the displays you love without having to completely strip them and rewire the frame.  Both of our LED screw in bulbs use .96 watts per bulb, whereas Incandescent C7 use 5 watts and C9 use 7 so there's a tremendous savings in power consumption. LED bulbs have a bulb life rated at 50,000 hours, which is pretty long and while no one will guarantee bulbs for that long period of time LEDs will outlast old school bulbs by many many years. Screw in LEDs are also made of durable plastic so they wont shatter and their colors do not fade because the LED inside the bulb itself is making the color not the color of the plastic itself. They may have a higher up front cost but making the switch will save many man hours of repair time and save a lot of money on the power bill.

For more info on our bulbs visit www.aachristmas.com
For more info on our Christmas Displays visit www.allamericanchristmas.com

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Zach

Repairing/Replacing bulbs in Christmas Displays.

Christmas displays for homes, businesses, and cities aren't going to last forever and let's face it these pieces get a lot of punishment in the elements during the holiday season! This blog is going to be a crash course in sprucing up Christmas displays and commercial decorations.

The most important thing you need to establish is what type of lights you need, typically displays use C7 or C9 bulbs, Mini lights, Rope Light, or LED Christmas lights.

C7 and C9 type bulbs are the easiest to fix or revamp. These glass bulbs need to be replaced every few seasons, mixing and matching old and new bulbs isn't what we recommend because the colors/brightness of the bulbs won't be consistent. Hours of burning the lamps, plus being exposed to UV will change colors and the brightness does tend to fade after a seasons worth of hours. So before you decorate with your piece, plug it up and establish what needs to be replaced, if you need many lights we sell incandescent bulbs in bulk for this type of job!

Christmas Pole Decorations

Christmas Light Pole Decorations adorn many downtown streets across the country and All American Christmas Co. has one of the largest selection Pole Mounted Christmas Displays online. We can customize any display you see on our website or get a piece custom designed and made for you.

Pole mount displays have been a main stay for most cities and business for many years because how quickly they can change a a street or a parking lot into  a festive place. We carry Snowflakes, Bells, Wreaths, Santas, Reindeer, Elves, Trees, Candy Canes, and Much More. Street Pole Christmas Decorations are fairly simple to install; each Pole Displays will require a power source on the pole itself, the display uses a bracket that allows the installer to use banding straps to secure the banding strap to a pole. Since the majority of poles are tapered if the pole decoration slides down it won't slide far because the taper.

All of the displays we offer can be lit with either Incandescent or LED Christmas lights, we recommend using LEDs because they use such little power and since so many cities and businesses are cracking down on power usage it really will allow you to save money during the holiday season. C7 incandescent bulbs use 5 watts and LED use .97 or less depending on manufacturer, so lets say the average snowflake has around 100 bulbs using incandescent will pull 500 watts and LED christmas lights will use 97 watts. So saving on average 400 watts for a standard size snowflake, that type of reduced power consumption will save hundreds of dollars.

For large orders please shoot us a email and we can work up a quote and can help you save. We are working all year helping customers meet their holiday decorating needs and will be happy to make your displays ideas come to light!

Check out all our Christmas Pole Decorations here

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Zach
All American Christmas Co.
www.aachristmas.com
www.allamericanchristmas.com

Commercial Christmas Displays

All American Christmas Co. has been providing the country with Christmas lights since the mid 90's (yeah we were online way back then) but what got us into this business was installing Large Christmas Displays, Large Christmas Trees and other commercial holiday decorations. Steve started out installing Christmas lights and what not helping out a college friend and when he heard about the internet his mind went to e-commerce and here we are now. One thing we pride ourselves with at All American Christmas Co. is our hands on experience with our products and that's what brings me to the purpose of this blog post, we have years of experience designing, repairing, and installing Christmas displays. Since Steve installed them for so long we have personal relationships with the largest Christmas display builders in the country and can help our customers design a perfect display or set of displays.

All of our Commercial Christmas Decorations are built to order, we offer Pole Mounted Displays, Standard Ground Mounted Christmas Displays, Building Mounted Displays, Custom Street Banners, Cross Street Displays and Signs, Christmas Arches, Christmas Signs, Large Christmas Trees, Large Christmas Wreaths, and more. We also carry Life Size Nativity Scenes, and Large Fiberglass Holiday Characters that are made in the USA and are hand painted. All of our Commercial Christmas products are made in the USA and can be lit with Incandescent or LED lights.

Check out www.allamericanchristmas.com for all of our great Commercial Christmas Products. This site is mainly set up as a online catalog, all of these pieces have to be quoted so if you're interested in a product(s) email us and we will begin the quoting process. Email us all your contact info, your shipping info, and the specific product(s) as well as any custom option and we will get back to you asap.
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Zach
All American Christmas Co.
www.aachristmas.com
www.allamericanchristmas.com