How to Install Christmas Lights on Brick

Brick is the most common frontage in London and the South East, and the surface people most often damage at Christmas. It does not need drilling, and it should not be drilled.

Fix into the joint, not the face

Spring brick clips are the default: a steel clip that compresses and wedges into the mortar line. Pennies each, seconds to fit, and they pull out in January leaving nothing.

Mortar hooks are a hardened pin tapped into the joint. Fine on modern brickwork — never on soft lime mortar or anything historic.

Adhesive hooks fail on weathered stock brick, dusty surfaces or in a frost, usually about a week after you fit them.

Spacing

Fix every 30–40cm on a horizontal run and every 20cm on anything vertical or curved. Wider than that and the cable draws its own scalloped line between fixings, which looks like a mistake because it is one.

What not to use

Frost, damp and the January problem

Water in a mortar joint expands when it freezes. A pin driven hard into a saturated joint can spall the edge of the brick when the first hard frost arrives. Two habits avoid it: fit in dry conditions where you can, and never force a fixing that does not want to go.

Come January, remove clips by pulling straight out along the line of the joint. Twisting is what chips the arris of the brick.

Listed buildings and conservation areas

Seasonal lighting is temporary, so it is usually fine — the test is whether anything is fixed permanently or any fabric is damaged.

Having it fitted

Period and painted brick frontages are most of what we light across London and the South East. Nothing goes into the brick, everything comes down in January, and the lights are yours to keep.