If you own a Balsam Hill Christmas tree...

[Anonymous]

Ours did this too (probably also purchased about 2017 and died just outside of warranty). I ended up giving it away and buying an unlit one from Target and adding my own lights.

[Anonymous]

Ikea lights last forever (or at least 7 years and counting)

[Anonymous]

We haven’t had an issue with the lights themselves, but the remote unit keeps breaking. We’ve replaced it twice. Now I just have the tree on a timer.

FWIW, we have a cheap prelit tree that we got from Home Depot over ten years ago that’s still going strong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ours did this too (probably also purchased about 2017 and died just outside of warranty). I ended up giving it away and buying an unlit one from Target and adding my own lights.

I'm confused--why wouldn't you just keep the original tree and add your lights to that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ours did this too (probably also purchased about 2017 and died just outside of warranty). I ended up giving it away and buying an unlit one from Target and adding my own lights.

I'm confused--why wouldn't you just keep the original tree and add your lights to that?

Have you tried to clip the non-working light strands off a prelit tree? It's horrible. The cord is wrapped tightly around every bough and it takes hours to cut them away and the needles fall off the tree. It's a mess. I started doing this with a prelit tree with broken lights and then gave up.

[Anonymous]

We have had one that pre-dates 2017 and it has worked great. Not a bulb needing replacement. However I don’t think it is the full-tree flip kind. Each sections can flip and collapse but not all together and it’s not on wheels. Do you think that could be part of the problem? Ie the wiring down the center? I am sorry you all have had issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I bought an unlit BH tree for this reason. As PP above said, the lights are an issue with all prelit trees.

+1. Although I will add that, though I like my unlit BH tree, I think BH is a terrible company. Their customer service is awful.

[Anonymous]

We have had this problem for the last two years and it drives us nuts. We will be out of town for Christmas and didn’t even bother to put up the tree this year. We did do some other decorating though.

[Anonymous]

I am having the same issue. Frustrating. Has anyone mixed non-balsam hill lights that are working with new local purchased lights to plug in and replace the non-working strings?

[Anonymous]

I always expect to have to replace Christmas lights ever few years. Our BH tree is awesome, but three or four years in we did end up removing all the strands it came with and now light it ourselves every year.

Yes, it was a pain to remove the lights. Took us an hour or two to clip them away, but we had adult beverages and festive music and made an afternoon of it and then it was done. No need to do that every year since. The tree quality is great, so it would have been a waste and incredibly environmentally unfriendly to throw it away.

[Anonymous]

We bought a nearly new pre-lit flip tree on FB marketplace that the original buyers were selling because the lights had stopped working. We tried replacing bulbs and troubleshooting but could not get it to work, so also spent an afternoon clipping off the strands.

It was time consuming but worth it to get a 1k+ tree for a couple hundred dollars. I notice they pop up a lot on marketplace around this time of year when people find out their lights aren't working!

[Anonymous]

Bought our Balsam Hill tree in 2017 and the lights started failing in 2022. Worse in 2023. Tried all the troubleshooting tips and then called customer service and they were no help at all. They said to watch the videos, which I did and was not helpful and not specific enough to fix the problems. Then they said there was nothing more they could do.

I'm done with Balsam Hill. Spent a fortune on this tree. Very disappointing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is why I hate pre lit trees. They are great until they don’t light!

+1
Buy a tree with no lights next time and spare yourself the agony.

[Anonymous]

Same here. Our BH tree dates to 2016(not a flip tree; incandescent lights). Each year more lights are out when I set up the tree. I spent the better part of this afternoon trying to troubleshoot multiple unlit strands. I ended up buying a Lightkeeper Pro and I was able to locate and fix many of the problem areas. However, it was a frustrating experience trying to follow the wires around the tree as I tested the voltage. I too found the BH videos to be useless, but one by Lightkeeper Pro was very detailed and helpful. We bought this tree because I hated stringing lights on the natural trees we used to buy, but this experience was way more frustrating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand how so many lights can burn out in the off-season when the tree isn't even being used. We put it away in January and everything seems fine, but when we plug it in again for the first time 11 months later a bunch of stuff doesn't work.

I mean, this happens every year for a lot of people with light strands that work fine and then get stored and don't work when you take them out again. I don't get it but it's such a common problem. This is why we didn't buy a prelit tree. You get better at stringing the lights every year and it's not a big deal.