The questions people actually ask.

Yes, and in this state it is half the work we do. A pitched roof gives us a fascia board to set the track into and the lights face down and out from the edge. A flat pueblo or territorial roof has no fascia at all, so the track runs along the inside face or the cap of the parapet and the light washes down the wall and picks out the edge.

The look is different and, on a lot of adobe, better — you get a lit wall and a clean line rather than a row of dots. What does not change is what we fasten into. Never the roof membrane, never the drip edge, and never through a canale.

It does the look, every night, without the evening of folding and filling. Warm white along the roofline and the parapet from dusk is very close to what a well-set row of luminarias gives you, and it does not blow out at ten o'clock or need taking down in January.

Plenty of people still set real ones along the walkway on Christmas Eve, because that part is the tradition. The roofline is the part nobody misses doing on a ladder.

And yes — in Albuquerque they are luminarias. In Santa Fe they are farolitos. We have learned not to argue about it.

It is priced by the linear foot of roofline, so the honest answer is that it depends entirely on your house — and that a number quoted before anyone has measured is a guess.

What we will commit to is this: the quote is free, it happens in person, and you get an exact price the same visit rather than a range and a follow-up call. If the number does not work for you, that is a perfectly good outcome for a free quote.

Most people buy it for December and then use it about three hundred nights a year. Warm white on a sunset timer is what it does most of the time, and it is the setting people say they did not expect to care about.

Beyond that: full color for Balloon Fiesta week, orange and purple through October, red and gold when the state flag is the point, cherry and silver on a Saturday in the fall, and full brightness as security lighting when you want the front of the house genuinely lit rather than outlined.

Worth raising early, and we would rather raise it than have you find out later. New Mexico has had a statewide Night Sky Protection Act since 1999, and the City of Santa Fe has required shielded outdoor fixtures on new construction since 1998. Several communities around Santa Fe and Placitas care about it well beyond what the rules require.

Roofline lighting that points down and out, at low brightness, on a schedule that turns it off at a sensible hour is the kind of exterior lighting these rules are written to encourage rather than restrict. What we will not do is tell you your specific install is compliant without reading your jurisdiction's current code and your HOA's rules with you. Ask us at the quote and we will go through it.

Usually, and the color-matching is the reason. Most HOA objections to permanent lighting are about a visible white strip along the roof. Track powder-coated to your stucco or your parapet cap does not read as hardware from the street in daylight.

Rio Rancho and the master-planned parts of the metro are where this comes up most. Send us your covenants before the install and we will tell you honestly whether it is a problem, a conversation, or nothing at all.

Most homes are a day. Larger or cut-up rooflines can run into a second one, and you will know which yours is at the quote rather than on the morning.

Monsoon season moves schedules. We do not run crews on a roof in an afternoon thunderstorm, so July through September we start early and we will call you rather than leave you waiting. The hardware itself is built to sit out there year-round, including the UV at five thousand feet, which is harder on plastic than most people expect.

It is attached to the house, so it stays with the house, the same way a ceiling fan does. In practice it is a selling feature — the buyer inherits the app, the schedules and the remainder of the product warranty.

If you are building and want this on a house you do not own yet, wait until closing. We will hold the quote.

Three of them.

It is a real cost up front. This is a several-thousand-dollar decision against a couple of hundred for bags and strands. It pays back over years, not months, and if you are moving in eighteen months it probably is not for you.

The track is permanent. It is designed to stay. If it is ever removed, the fascia or parapet has fixings that need filling and painting.

It is only as good as the install. Badly installed permanent lighting sags, shows in daylight and lets water in. That is the whole reason to care who does it. Ask any company you talk to what they fasten into on a flat roof — if the answer is anything involving the roof membrane or a canale, keep looking.