Central Florida Lighting Expert Flags Tile Roof Risks as CPSC Data Shows 160 Decorating Injuries a Day

Nearly half of the 14,900 holiday decorating injuries treated in U.S. emergency rooms in the 2023 season involved falls, according to the CPSC.

LAKE MARY, FL, UNITED STATES, November 11, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Thanksgiving weekend opens the busiest stretch of holiday light hanging in Central Florida, and Brad Sloan, owner of Lake Mary-based Sloan Lighting Solutions, is asking homeowners with tile roofs and second-story eaves to plan the job before they climb. Sloan, who has designed and installed outdoor lighting across the region since 2008, says the combination of ladders and barrel tile is where most of the seasonal risk sits.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) estimates that about 14,900 people were treated in hospital emergency departments for holiday decorating injuries during the 2023 holiday season. That works out to roughly 160 injuries a day, and nearly half involved falls, according to the agency's Nov. 19, 2024 holiday safety release, its most recent published count.

Ladders sit at the center of that number. A December 2024 CNN analysis of CPSC National Electronic Injury Surveillance System data from 2004 through 2023 found ladders were involved in 17 percent of estimated hospital visits tied to Christmas decorations, more than any other product in the records.

Central Florida adds its own variable. Concrete and clay barrel tile roofs are common on custom homes in Lake Mary, Heathrow, Winter Park and Maitland. The material holds up well to sun and wind, but individual tiles crack under concentrated point loads, such as a ladder foot, a boot heel or a light clip pried beneath the tile lip.

"Tile will carry a lot of weight when it's spread out, but put all of it on one point and it cracks," said Brad Sloan, owner of Sloan Lighting Solutions. "The bad part is nobody sees it in December. A clip slid under the lip lifts the tile just enough, water finds that gap once the summer storms start, and the homeowner thinks it's a roof problem, not a Christmas light problem."

For homeowners hanging their own lights this year, Sloan recommends setting ladders on firm, level ground rather than on the roof surface, keeping a second person at the base, and attaching strands to gutters or fascia with clips made for those surfaces instead of clips that slide under tile. He also advises checking the roofline from the ground after the January takedown for shifted or cracked tiles. Light sets should be rated for outdoor use and plugged into outlets with ground fault circuit interrupter (GFCI) protection.

Homeowners who want to stop climbing altogether can move to permanent roofline lighting, a low-profile aluminum track mounted flush along the roofline and color matched to the fascia and trim. The LEDs are programmed from a phone app, so the same system can run warm white accent lighting for most of the year and switch to holiday colors in November and December without anyone going up a ladder. Sloan Lighting Solutions also continues to offer traditional seasonal installation, including design, in-season maintenance, takedown and off-season storage.

Because lighting is experienced at night, Sloan brings a demonstration trailer to in-home consultations so homeowners can judge color temperature, brightness and spacing on site after dark instead of from daytime photos. That matters in December, when Central Florida's earliest sunsets arrive around 5:28 p.m., according to WKMG News 6 in Orlando, leaving displays to run for hours in full darkness each night.

"Nobody looks at their lights at noon," Sloan said. "Seeing it on the house, at night, is how a homeowner knows the color is right before anything gets installed."

Thanksgiving falls on Nov. 26 this year. For homeowners decorating on their own, Sloan's advice comes down to one rule: keep the ladder off the tile.

About Sloan Lighting Solutions

Sloan Lighting Solutions is an outdoor lighting company based in Lake Mary, Florida, founded in 2008 by owner Brad Sloan. The company designs and installs landscape and outdoor lighting, permanent roofline lighting, color-changing lighting, deck and patio lighting, outdoor audio and Christmas light installation for homes and businesses across Central Florida, including Lake Mary, Heathrow, Winter Park, Maitland, Longwood, Windermere and Orlando. The company is licensed and insured, uses commercial-grade fixtures built for Florida heat and humidity, and fine-tunes every design after dark. More information is available at https://sloanlightingsolutions.com/ .

Brad Sloan
Sloan Lighting Solutions
+1 407-635-7479
SloanLightingSolutions@Gmail.com
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