How to put up Diwali lights in Bengaluru

More money lights more of the house, and lights it more evenly. Rice lights you hang yourself give a twinkle along a grille or a window. A lighting firm's crew outlines every edge and hangs strings down from the terrace, so the whole front glows from the road. A decorator works in one warm white, with curtains of light and wrapped trees.

Pick what you're lighting to see its price.

Doing it yourself works for a balcony or a terrace. Rice lights plug in and nobody climbs. Above the first floor, pay someone with a ladder who does this often: the building's electrician or a local one. A rented floodlight on the ground can also wash a wall with light (question 4).

We found no lighting firm that prints a price for a house front of a stated size, so we worked it out from the parts. A firm reuses its lights for years, so the crew's days are the biggest part of its price.

What one rental firm's terms look like. Lucky Light House in Wilson Garden rents lights and prints no price for a house. Its FAQ says:

• Its minimum budget starts from ₹5,000.
• It charges the first day in full, then half the first day's bill for each extra day you keep the lights. It doesn't say whether the ₹5,000 is that first day's bill or the least it charges for the whole booking, so ask what five nights comes to.
• It writes the set-up and removal date and time into its quote, and adds transport on top.
• Once you've settled the quote, it sends a team to check the place. It doesn't say if that visit costs anything or can change the price, so ask.

A home-services app we looked at also sends someone to put up lights you've bought, priced by the string.

What to ask him:

• Whether the take-down visit is in the price, and its date.
• Whether he brings the ladder.
• What he charges to come back if the lights trip on Diwali night.
• To press the test button on your RCCB before he starts.

If he's adding a socket, a new plug point on the balcony or terrace is wiring work. The 2023 electricity safety rules leave that to a state-licensed electrical contractor. They don't say whether hanging plug-in strings counts.

Metres for a typical job of each kind.

Use IP65 plugs outside, keep every plug under cover, and test the trip switch before you start.

• The trip switch. The 2023 electricity safety rules require a residual current device of 30 mA or less in a home. On your board it may say RCCB or ELCB, and it has a test button. It cuts the power when current leaks, which a wet plug causes. Press the button before the lights go up: the switch should drop. If your board has none, have a licensed electrician fit one first. If it trips in the rain, find the wet joint and dry it.
• The plug. Glimmer Lightings' own pages say the plug on its rice lights and on its big-bulb string isn't waterproof. IP44 on a light means it takes splashes from any side, and IP65 a jet of water, so use IP65 for anything out in the open. It can rain in Diwali week: 71.2 mm fell on 6 November 2023, six days before that Diwali.
• One socket, no chains. Don't plug one extension board into another, and switch the lights off when nobody's home.
• The bill. By our estimate, 100 m of LED string lit six hours a night for ten nights adds about ₹22 at BESCOM's home rate, before tax. Rope or strip light, at about 5 W a metre, draws about eight times as much power as the LED string.

If they won't write it down, assume you pay, and think again about any part of the job that needs someone on a parapet.

• What to ask for, in writing. Who pays if their worker falls, and who pays if their lights or wiring burn your wall, your curtains or anything else.
• Crackers. Ask whether damage from crackers is covered, and keep rented strings away from where they go off.

Ask for one total, and ask what is in it. These are the four things that stop a surprise bill:

• The nights, and the day and time they take it down.
• The metres or floors, and who measures.
• Who brings the ladder and the power point, and whether transport is in the price.
• Who pays for damage to their lights.

Why two quotes for one house differ:

• Whose lights. A firm's price includes its own lights. With lights you bought, you pay only for the hands.
• The kind of light. A big-bulb string costs 10 to 50 times as much a foot as rice lights (question 4).
• The metres, and who measures. Ask whether every window and pillar counts.
• The nights. Rented lights are charged by the day.
• The height. Above the first floor, someone has to climb.

Then the rest: the kind and colour of light, steady or blinking, the wire colour if your wall is white, which socket it runs from, and a name to call on Diwali night.

The advance. Lucky Light House takes 50% of the total bill to confirm the booking, and wants the rest at handover, before the lights go on. So you pay before you've seen them work. Ask if they'll switch on once first. If you cut a lot from the order after booking, you can lose the advance. Ask in writing how much counts as a lot, and whether any of it comes back.