How to Make the Christmas Lights Tunnel Display
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- čas přidán 17. 12. 2020
- Merry Christmas everyone. I hope this video is useful and brings you as much joy as I received for making it for my family. If you have any questions about this project please let me know. I forgot to mention the cable ties. I used three per post so you will need at least 42 to get the PVC to stay in place.
The three items you will need to buy are listed below:
U-Post: www.lowes.com/pd/Blue-Hawk-Co...
PVC Pipe: www.lowes.com/pd/Charlotte-Pi...
Red Tape: www.lowes.com/pd/3M-Tough-1-8...
This is by far the easiest thing to do ! Just did mines for 2021 XMAS , the hardest part about this is simply wrapping the lights around the PVC pipe . Have many compliments in just two days and all cars driving by slow down to see .
Disregard the neatness when wrapping the tape around the PVC pipe as the lights will cover wrinkles and other small imperfections .
I used the following for every Arch
1-20ft 3/4” schedule 40 pipe $10
2-Precut Rebars $4 each (construction isle)
1-200 Mini Light Strings
1-Roll of Red duct tape will cover up to 6 Arches.
Yeah, you are not kidding about the neatness. Mine looks horrible in spots but it is hard to see because of the lights.
So glad you were able to make it!
@@MyDIYbyBrian tell me about it , I was freaking out about wrapping them and killed time trying to make it neat . After I wrapped them , you couldn’t even tell ! LOL
Thanks for the video and thanks for the help . As other people mentioned , your video was by far the most helpful and the most straight forward .
@@rickhtx2962 How far apart did you have your rebars? Is 3/4 pvc more flexible than 1/2 inch?
@D Frazier I found some U-posts at my local lowes/home depot.
@@AA-ho5mg I personally spaced them about about 6ft or 7ft apart .
Thank you all the other videos I watched on these had a lot more extra work put into them and yours look the exact same with less work. Amazing
Thank you very much! I hope you're able to make yours.
Wow stringing up the lights in the rain. That's devotion to the holiday ^^
Haha, yep!
Glad I found your channel, great job!! Love this. Thank you so much for sharing!!🌲👍
Thank you so much for stopping by and commenting!
Very nice!!! I Was really impressed with you wrapping the lights in the rain. It showed your determination of getting it done. Great work ethics. Job Well done !!!
Thank you very much for the kind words!
Incredible!!! I will make a gate instead of tunnel this year and see how it goes! Thanks for the brilliant idea! Merry Christmas to you all
That sounds like a great idea!
Did you end up making your gate yet? How does it look?
That’s awesome. I love it.
Thank you very much!
in the rain that is dedication
Haha, yep. Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
Looks great 👍
Thanks!
I am so doing this and thank you for making it look easy peezy.
You are welcome! Let me know if you have any questions.
If you can cut the size of pipe down to 18ft you can use sdr 21 and run the led rope light through it and itll shine through the pipe since its so thin walled. Just another option and dont have to wrap them, just push them through and plug in. Could alternate white then red and so on. Or wrap the pipe in red tape and just use the white led rope and should shine through the tape too.
Cool idea!
Beautiful ❤️
Thank you for lovely comment!
I see one on my way home from work at night . I will stop park and walk thru it. It is all red lights. Looks nice.
Yeah, they are a lot of fun!
Thank you for all of this it was great, I am on my way to lowes!!!
You are very welcome!
@@MyDIYbyBrian Could you use two 10ft sections of pvc pipe and connect them with a coupling? Having a hard time finding 20ft long sections of pvc. Do you have a link to the lights you used?
Would be cool for Halloween too
Yeah!!
THIS IS AWSOME !!!!
Thanks!! It was a lot of fun to build/make
OMG!! LOVE THIS!!!
Thank you so much!
So cute!! I wanna try!
Good luck!!
Go for it ! It’s super easy !
Nice!!!
Thanks!
HOA would live this
Lol, actually no less than 4 other houses in my neighborhood have this.
A true Christmas soldier, working in the rain.
Yeah, gotta embrace the weather in all it's beauty.
Prices have gone up substantially. That same PVC today is $11.00 + at Lowe's. Thanks Joe.
Oh wow! Thanks for the info.
Thats the best part about working at a pvc plant. I can get what is needed right off the line. Will def be trying this next year. I make a pvc fence every year made with 2 inch sch 40 for posts wrapped in red tape and run lights from one to the other all the way down the property line. I do 2 runs of lights so they look like the old school fences did. Just another idea.
Brian, very nice job looks great, I bet the neighbors love it. And it's Sous Chef approved !
Thanks, Joe. We were inspired by our neighbors down the street. They have three houses with the arches. It looks really good!
Very cool! We take part in our neighborhood Christmas contest every year. Going to try this. Great video! A lot of help.
Thank you much and good luck!!
Great job on the arch! I was wondering what are the lengths of the pipe to get the effect of a tunnel ? Do you shorten each arch as you procede? Thanks
Each pipe is 20 feet long. The effect you're seeing is just from how far spaced apart they are.
Cheers!
Very nice! You mentioned the arches are spaced 6ft from each other. However, I'm wondering what the distance is from each post for the arch itself? How wide is the arch? Hope my question makes sense. Thanks :)
Sorry it took so long for me to respond. It is actually also 6 feet from end to end in the ground. If you have any more questions please let me know. Thanks!
What keeps the lights from sliding / or bunching together? Excited to tackle this, this weekend!
Use duck tape and/or zip ties as needed.
I thought I was going to have to use tape or ties to keep the lights in place but the natural friction does the job all by itself.
Great work. Where did you find the soundtrack?
Thanks! It is actually from you CZcams audio library.
I'm omw way to home depot now!! Love this tfs oh can I do less than 7 pipes I measured my space for 6ft apart n it only will make 4
Make sure you get the correct pvc pipe. It will need to be very sturdy.
Hey I did it yeaahh I got scheduled 40 pvc 1/2 only thing I live n new orleans so the worker suggested that I put 5 in pvc down the middle of arch to keep it sturdy n I was able to do 9 arches 5 ft apart how can I send u a pic n tfs n I also went to another guy pg n got sum ideas frm him bt I let them kno n the comments that I was inspired to do this project by u ty ty so much I'm a new grandmother n my gigi love it thanks again happy holidays to u n ur family
I love this idea❤!How many sets of lights did you use and how many lights are on each string?
Thanks so much! I used 300 lights per arch. I bought boxes of 300 which actually came in two lines at 150 lights each.
Is there a reason you didn't just slide the pvc over the rebar?
Beautiful display! We'll be doing this next year
The pvc pipe isn't large enough to go over the u-posts. You could try using rebar. Good luck!
Hi, any reason for not wrapping the poles with the lights first? Was that mainly because you had to zip tie them onto the U-posts and didn’t want to do tie the light strings in there too? Also, I noticed you mentioned you used the 300ct mini lights. Was that 1 box per pole? Thanks in advance and great work!
I used about 2 boxes per pole and this was based on the location of the poles being in a continuous line down from the center.
Hi very beautiful I have one question I have almost the same house as you . And I'm doing the house show lights this year do you think that will look good or will it take away the show lights
Hard to say but these lights can also be turned off when you are doing your show. Good luck!
Trabajando en la lluvia
Haha, pretty much.
Nope, me and the rain, rain outside me inside!
Hahaha
What lights did you use? I’m in search of warm-toned colored Christmas lights and I can’t seem to find what I want!
Everything I find is cool-toned LED or incandescent with too much blue/green/purple.
These were the 300 colored Mini lights from Walmart. I hope that helps.
Want to get started early. How far apart from each arch are they? Thanks. ( Hopefully it doesn't rain on you this year 🤙
6 ft
@@ThegirlwhocriedJesus Thanks
The duct tape doesnt peel off from rain/weather?
Hasn't happened yet.
How does it handle wind. We have 20+ mph winds in Western KS, a lot!
I am sure it would fine. There is not much surface area there to catch the wind.
I have 4 20 foot long interlocking 1/2 inch PVC arches and I do guy lines on mine. I would thing it’s only a matter of time before even a structure like this to go over.
On mine, with a lot of rain and wind gusts it would cause the 1/2 rebar that was driven over a foot deep to washout the hole making it rickety at best.
Do you think I can use rebar to slide the PVC over it?
Yes, I think that is a good idea.
Rebar is easy ! You can find it in pre cut sections at HD or Lowe’s in the construction isle . Buy a 3ft or 4ft section and simply drive it into the ground 1ft or so .
Hello. I am trying to do this, but the upper part of the arch seems to not stand straight and instead it goes too back or too forward. What can I do?
You could wrap lights between the arches at the top. This should help get the tops from swaying.
Does the tape serve any purpose aside from daytime aesthetics?
No, it just makes it look a lot better during the day.
Nope just gives it that look
Oh n I had to get the 10 ft pvc n connectors bc dey only had 20ft n pex n I'm able to break it down wen I take them down
Good to know. Let me know how the pex works out. Cheers!
@@MyDIYbyBrian no I didn't use pex
A year later and these pipes were $15 😭 I was bawling at Lowes haha
That sucks! Good luck on the project!
Foreigner? Ok what's left
How wide are the arches over the sidewalk?
The sidewalk is 4ft wide and I placed the PVC pipe 6 inches into the grass on either side. So 5ft wide in total.
Hi that pvc pipe is currently sold out, can you link one that is in stock I’m confused on which one to buy now
I am also having trouble finding the exact pipe that you need. Make sure to look for 20 ft long pvc that is not pex. I hope that helps!
How did you get sll them on 1 outlet without tripping it ?
These lights are actually meant to be Daisy Chained. The box will say how many lights you can link together. Cheers!
Wondering if you've ever had problems with the wind blowing the arches over?
Not yet, they are secured with the zip ties and stakes in the ground really well.
Cheers!
can the pvc slide over the poles?
Exactly what I was thinking
No, the pipe is not big enough.
@@MyDIYbyBrian oh darn, what you've done is awesome, thank you for the inspiration.
I thought that
Yes, use wD 40. It will fit.
How long of a pipe to do a 2 car wide driveway
I'm not sure you could actually do a 16ft wide driveway safely without a lot of support and reinforcement.
how many lights did you have to use?
It was 300 per pipe. Thanks for stopping by!
Question I literally saw your video and ran to my local Home Depot bought and instal the pvc and everything but during the day the pvc pipes bend like literally bend to the floor what I’m I doing wrong
The pvc pipe is probably the wrong kind. I made some for Halloween this year and it was also the wrong kind.
Sorry!!
Couldn't you put the PVC over the stakes?
No. the pipe is not wide enough.
🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰
Thanks!!
Would there be any reason why I couldn’t use 1/2 in pvc with a 1/2 rebar? I tried the fitting in the store and the 1/2 rebar was nice and snug against the 1/2 in pvc.
You can. Use wd40 to make it go on easier.
Yes, I had actually meant to buy 1/2 pvc originally. The rebar should work perfectly.
Thanks! That will cut down on the cost. I wasn’t sure if it’d be too wobbly or anything. Looks great!
The 1/2 inch was too wobbly. I bought one to test it out. I returned it and tested the 3/4 and it’s perfect.
@@caseythomas4054 good to know!
Hi can you please link the lights that you use?
These should do really nice: amzn.to/3UZZbap
Good luck!
@@MyDIYbyBrian thank you
Oh how much duck dare did u use
I think I used just over one roll. Good luck!!
How long did this hold up for?
I had it up for the entire Christmas season and now I'm storing it until we put it back up this year. Cheers!
Where you live? Washington State?
Sorry, we've moved from Washington a few years ago. This video was actually filmed in Louisiana.
Why would you zip tie them?
The zip ties hold them in place
LOOKS LIKE ITS RAINING IN YOUR VID. HOW CAN YOU WORK IN RAIN WITH ELECTRIC LIGHTS?? LIKE YOU WERE.
You just have to be very careful when plugging the lights in.
@@MyDIYbyBrian HA HA LOL YOU CAN PLUG THEM IN I WILL JUST WATCH. SIZZLE WOULD BE MY MIDDLE NAME!!! YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING.
@@judithcarnevale3080 hahaha 🤣
Hard part: storing 20 feet of pvc for 11 months of the year.
yep.... you're not wrong ;)
This
Use poly pipe instead then you can roll it up
@@bryliekrause9123 I do not think poly pipe would work. If you could roll it up it also means it wont hold the shape that I put it in. Cheers!
well working with electricity in the rain not the smarted thing
Thanks for stopping by!
Sooooo why did you not put the pvc over the bar?? Instead of the side zipping it too the sides??? And also your lights where uneven on like 3 poles run cords too each light so you dont have one side on the ground better luck next time
The PVC pipe was not big enough to go over the U-posts. I did not see the need to buy additional extensions cords for the arches and the amount lost for the ground run is minimal. I hope you're able to make yours look beautiful.
super great response