Ridge Line Pricing for Permanent Lights: Peaks and Jumps

On GlowBid's default rate card, a ridge line prices at the roofline rate ($25 per foot on permanent track), a peak at $28 per foot plus a 15 percent pitch premium ($32.20 effective), and a jump at $12 per unlit foot, with optional flat charges per peak and per jump on top. On the two-gable, two-storey house worked below, those three lines are $2,313 of a $5,103 quote. Those are starting numbers; every installer sets their own.

Nobody publishes these three as line items. HomeGuide says homes with "multiple stories, porches, and peaks" cost more and gives $20 to $40 per foot for the whole job, which is true and useless at the kitchen table. This page is how I break them out, why, and what they add up to.

What do the three line items cost by product line?

The table is GlowBid's default card, which every new company starts with and edits. Roofline is included for comparison.

The pitch premium is fixed to the peak run type, so it applies wherever a peak is drawn, bungalow or three-storey. The storey premium follows each run's own storey count. The flat per-peak and per-jump charges are counted from the drawing.

How do you price a ridge line?

At the roofline rate by default, as its own run, and only when the customer wants it lit. The ridge is the top edge of a gable or the long spine of the roof. On seasonal jobs most customers skip it; on permanent jobs more of them want it, because the nodes are up there all year and a lit ridge outlines the house at night instead of just the eave.

Materials are the same as roofline: channel, nodes, clips. That is why the default rate is the same $25 on track and $20 on no-track. What changes is how your crew gets there. An eave is ladder work from the ground. A ridge is a roof walk, a second ladder set on the roof, or a lift, and on a steep pitch or a metal roof it is a rope job. If that is your crew, set the ridge rate above roofline on your card. The run type exists so you can.

Two things to draw correctly. First, the ridge is on the storey it sits on, so on a two-storey house it takes the 10 percent storey premium like the upper eave. Second, the ridge usually needs its own jump from the eave or a peak up to the ridge end, which is a jump line, not lit footage.

How do you price a peak?

Higher per foot, plus a pitch premium, plus an optional flat charge, and you count both edges of every gable.

Count the runs. A gable has two sloped edges. Two front gables are four peak runs. Draw each edge from the eave corner to the apex; the footage comes from the drawing.

Know the true length. A peak's length is its horizontal half-width times the pitch factor. From the ground or from a photo taken square on, the rake reads close to true. From above it reads short, which is one reason we never measure from satellite (the rules are in the Street View and satellite guide).

The rate and the premium. Default track is $28 per foot against $25 for roofline, and the 15 percent pitch premium on that run brings it to $32.20. Peaks are the slowest feet on the house: the channel is mitred at the apex, the ladder moves twice, and the crew is working on a slope. The rate says so, and the quote shows the premium as its own figure.

The flat per peak. A dollar amount per peak run, default $0. It covers what per-foot rates miss: the apex mitre, the end caps, the minute it takes to get the ladder around the gable. We set ours to $40. Because it is counted per drawn run, decide whether you draw each edge separately (two charges per gable) or one run over the apex (one charge) and set the number to match. We draw each edge.

How do you price a jump?

By the unlit foot at a low rate, plus a flat charge per jump if you want one, and never as lit footage.

A jump is the cable between two lit runs: from the bottom of a gable back to the eave, across a valley, over a garage door, from a peak up to the ridge. It has no channel and no nodes, so it must not be ordered as channel or priced as lights. It is not free either. It is cable, a connector at each end, a drip loop, clips every couple of feet, and the minutes it takes to hide the wire so the house looks right in daylight.

Default track is $12 per unlit foot; no-track is $10; C9 seasonal is $4. The flat per jump defaults to $0 and we run ours at $25, about what a clean jump costs us in parts and time. Most two-gable fronts have three jumps: one at the base of each gable and one to the ridge or across the garage. Draw them as jump runs and the count and the footage both come off the drawing, so the customer sees "3 jumps, 14 ft" and not a mystery line.

How do the storey premiums stack on these?

On the base price of each run, not compounded, and each run carries its own storey count. A second-storey peak on the default track card is $28 base, plus $4.20 pitch (15 percent of base), plus $2.80 storey (10 percent of base), so $35.00 per foot. A third storey adds another $2.80. A second-storey ridge line is $25 plus $2.50, so $27.50. Jumps take no pitch or storey premium; the cable does not care how high it is, and the flat per-jump charge covers the work.

Mark the storey as you draw. A two-storey house with a single-storey garage eave gets the premium on the upper runs and not on the garage. The premium follows the run, not the address.

Worked example: two gables, two storeys, permanent track

A two-storey front elevation with a single-storey garage bump-out, two front gables and a lit ridge on the main roof. Measured from a photo with the 16 ft double garage door as the reference. Every number is the GlowBid default card, including the $0 flat per-peak and per-jump charges. Peaks are drawn as one run per edge.

The ridge line, the peaks and the jumps are $2,313 of the $5,103, or 45 percent of the quote, on a house where the eaves are 96 of the 162 lit feet. Price those three at the roofline rate and skip the jumps and you would send $4,605 for the same work; leave the ridge off because you forgot to ask, and it is $4,000. With our own flat charges ($40 per peak, $25 per jump) the quote is $5,338. The all-in price is $31.50 per lit foot, inside HomeGuide's $20 to $40. The channel order with the 10 percent buffer is 178 ft; the jump cable is about 15 ft and is ordered as cable. Price this house in the free tool with a photo of your own; the footage by run type comes off the drawing.

Mistakes and edge cases

• One gable drawn as one peak, the next as two. The footage is fine either way; the flat per-peak count is not. Pick a habit.
• Forgetting the jump at the bottom of every gable. It is there on every house. Three gables, three jumps minimum.
• Ordering channel for jumps. Jumps are cable. The materials list carries them as jump footage, never as channel.
• Ridge line as an afterthought. Ask on every permanent quote. It is $605 on this house and the customer usually says yes when they see it drawn on the photo of their own house.
• Dormers. Each dormer is two short peaks and a jump, and the sides angle away from the camera, so type those lengths in from the tape.
• Hip roofs. No front peaks, but the customer may want the hips lit. Add a run type for it at the peak rate if your crew treats it as slope work.
• Peaks on a bungalow. The pitch premium still applies; the storey premium does not. The engine does both correctly if the run is marked storey 1.
• Steep pitch is not a storey. A 12/12 gable on a bungalow is slower than a 6/12 on a two-storey. If your crew's time says so, set a higher peak rate or a bigger flat per peak rather than faking a storey.
• Ridge on a metal roof in January. Do not. Quote it for spring and write the date on the agreement.

How the rate card carries all of this

The three line items live on one rate card: a per-foot rate for ridge line, peak and jump on each product line, the pitch premium fixed to the peak run type, the storey premium per run, and a flat amount per peak and per jump counted from the drawing. Draw the runs on your own photo, mark the storeys, and the footage, the price and the materials list come from the same geometry, with the measurement source and a note that photo footage is confirmed on site printed on the quote. The seasonal version of the same method is in how to price Christmas light installation per foot, the full permanent card is in how to price permanent Christmas lights per foot, and the measuring method is in how to measure a roofline from a photo. The full product, rate card included, opens November 1, 2026 at the founding price.