The short answer: for a 2-person crew, a trim-only install (60–120 linear feet) runs 4–7 hours. A whole-home install (200–400 linear feet) runs 8–14 hours, typically split across 1–2 days. Larger or more complex installs can extend to 2–3 days.
Install times by job size (2-person crew, experienced)
| Job size | Linear feet | Crew hours | Calendar time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small trim-only | 40–80 ft | 3–5 hours | Half-day |
| Standard trim-only | 80–120 ft | 4–7 hours | Half-day to full day |
| Trim + garage / accents | 120–180 ft | 6–9 hours | Full day |
| Standard whole-home | 200–300 ft | 8–12 hours | 1–1.5 days |
| Large whole-home | 300–400+ ft | 12–18 hours | 1.5–2 days |
| Complex multi-wing / 2-story steep pitch | varies | 16–28 hours | 2–3 days |
New crews run 30–50% slower than the above ranges until they hit their rhythm at the 30–50 install mark. Crew speed compounds — each install teaches the team something about pre-staging, ladder positioning, wire routing, and customer flow.
What slows installs down
Access difficulty
Two-story homes with steep pitches force the crew onto ladders or lift equipment for most of the install. Add 30–50% to the base hours. Some installers price these jobs with an access premium baked into the per-foot rate; others bring in a lift truck for specific installs.
Unusual rooflines
Multi-wing layouts, hidden gables, dormers, and complex transitions add real time. Confirm the on-site measurement matches your Light Launch auto-calculated linear footage before starting; satellite-based measurement sometimes misses the back wing or interior courtyard.
Material logistics
The single biggest avoidable time-killer. Running out of components mid-install means a 2-hour parts run. The fix: pre-stage every install's full materials list the night before. Light Launch's CRM ties the materials order to the lead, so the install day list is automatic.
Customer-day scope changes
"Can you also do the back porch?" mid-install kills your schedule. Lock scope at the deposit-paid stage in the customer portal. Mid-install add-ons get quoted as separate jobs scheduled for a later date.
Weather
Adhesives and sealants don't cure reliably below ~40°F. High winds make ladder work unsafe. Rain shuts down install entirely. Build weather buffers into your schedule — over-booking the calendar without buffer days catches up to you in October.
How to cut install time without cutting quality
Standardize every install
Document a checklist. Every install starts the same way: ladder positioning, materials laid out, controller location confirmed, wire path planned. The crew never wastes time figuring out what comes next.
Pre-stage materials the night before
Every install starts with the truck fully stocked for that specific job. No "I think we have enough channel" guesses. The materials list flows from the Light Launch quote, not from the crew's memory.
Geographic clustering — the biggest single lever
Three same-block installs in a day eliminates drive time entirely. The crew sets up once, works three roofs in sequence, breaks down once. That's typically a 20–30% effective hours reduction vs three installs spread across the metro. Light Launch's map-based scheduler surfaces same-block leads for batching.
Use the right ladders
Cheap ladders cost time. A flimsy 24-ft ladder that wobbles slows every move by 20%. Fiberglass extension ladders rated for the work pay for themselves in saved hours within the first month.
Train new crew on the install procedure, not by ride-along osmosis
A documented training process gets new crew productive in 2–4 weeks. Tribal-knowledge ride-alongs take 2–4 months for the same result.
Why install speed is the second-biggest margin lever (after CAC)
Install labor runs 15–25% of revenue on a typical permanent lighting job. A 2-person crew finishing a trim-only install in 5 hours instead of 9 hours improves gross margin by 5–8 percentage points and lets the same crew handle 3 installs a week instead of 2. Stack that across a year and it's the difference between a $400K business and a $600K business with the same headcount.
The first lever is acquisition (lower CAC). The second is install speed. Most installers obsess over the third (material cost) and ignore the first two, which is why they stall at 30–40 installs a year.
The scheduler that surfaces same-block batching.
Free account, free rendering, $1 per mailed design quote. Map-based lead clustering built in.
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