The best gutter clips for C9 lights

A swivel-and-lock bulb gripper, so the bulb points where you set it instead of where gravity puts it. On a gutter run with mixed bulb types, that control is worth the price difference.

Here is the problem a swivel clip solves. Along a gutter, C9 bulbs should stand straight up. Around a corner and down a rake, they should lie along the line. With a fixed-angle clip you get one of those two and fight the other.

Adams' Deluxe clip has a gripper that swivels and then locks. You set the bulb angle per clip, which means the gutter run stands up and the rake run lies flat, from one bag of clips. On a house with corners, dormers and a garage return — which is most houses — that is the difference between a display that looks installed and one that looks draped.

Adams lists compatibility across mini, C5, C6, C7, C9, C12, G-series globes and rope, which is the widest range on this page. If you run globe bulbs anywhere, this is one of very few clips that grips them properly.

They cost more than a plain universal clip. For a small display the plain clip is fine and we would not upsell you. For a large mixed display where the bulb angle changes several times, the control pays for itself in how the finished run reads from the street.

The all-application shape holds C7, C9, mini and icicle strings and mounts to either a gutter lip or under a shingle. If you are buying one clip type for the whole house, this is it.

The clip aisle is confusing because clips are sold by the problem they solve rather than by a spec, and the problems overlap. The all-application shape is the answer to that: a body that hooks over a gutter lip or slides under a shingle, with a gripper that takes a C7 or C9 bulb base as well as a plain wire.

For most houses that is one purchase instead of three. A typical display runs C9 along the gutter, mini string around a porch column and icicles over the garage — three bulb types that would otherwise mean three clip types.

The compromise is real but small. A dedicated C9 gutter clip holds a bulb more rigidly upright than a universal one does, so on a long exposed gutter in wind you will see a bit more bulb rotation. On a typical residential run at typical wind speeds, this is a cosmetic difference.

Count generously. The convention is a clip every 12 inches for bulbs and every 18 to 24 inches for plain wire, which means a 180-foot roofline is about 180 clips for C9. Buy 250. Clips are cheap, a second trip is not, and you will lose some into the gutter.

One thing no clip does: work on a gutter with a solid-top gutter guard. That is a separate problem with a separate answer, and we link it from here because it catches people out every year.

Adams' universal shape, and the one that will hold two light strands at once — which is exactly what you need where a roofline run meets a gutter run at a corner.

Where two runs meet — the gutter line and the rake coming down to it — you have two wires arriving at the same corner. With single-strand clips you either double up clips in the same inch or you let one run hang loose for the last two feet. Neither looks right.

Adams' All Application clip takes two strands. It also covers the modern small formats (5 mm, M5, T5, C6) plus C7 and C9 retrofit bulbs, and it changes orientation by how you mount it: horizontal off a gutter lip so bulbs lie along the line, vertical under a shingle so they stand up.

One practical caution. Two strands is roughly double the weight per clip, and wet strands in a freeze are heavier still. Where you are doubling up, tighten the spacing to about 8 inches instead of 12. This is the one place people get a sag.

For a simple single-run display, this is more clip than you need and the mini or plain universal is fine.

A heavier-bodied Adams clip. The reason to pay for a thicker clip is not strength in November; it is that thin plastic goes brittle by February and snaps at takedown.

Clips almost never fail during the season. They fail in the first week of January, at about 20 degrees, when you pull them off the roof and the plastic has gone brittle in the cold. A clip that snaps is a clip you buy again next year, and the leg left under the shingle is a clip you cannot retrieve.

A heavier body resists that. Adams' Mighty Light clip is the thicker option in their line and it is the one to buy if your January is genuinely cold, or if your shingles are thick architectural laminates that a thin clip has to be forced under.

The cost argument flips once you count seasons. A cheap clip used once is more expensive per year than a good clip used five times, and you avoid the annual re-order.

In a mild climate with standard three-tab shingles, this is more clip than the job needs.