The short answer
Do not put either one on a reel. For icicle sets, buy a rigid box with flat cord wraps rather than spools — the HOMZ Holiday Light Organizer publishes exactly that, two containers at 17.9 x 15 x 11 in with four flat cord wraps each. For net lights, fold the mesh flat and lay it in a long, low box: the Sterilite 66-quart Ultra publishes 37 3/8 in of interior length at 6 7/8 in deep, which is a shallow fold rather than a crease. No reel on the market publishes a capacity for either shape.
Why the reel advice does not apply
Everything else in this section tells you to put one strand on one reel, because for an ordinary string that genuinely does make tangling impossible. A reel works by holding a cord of even diameter in the channel between two flanges, under even tension, with nothing else in that channel.
An icicle set is not a cord of even diameter. It is a common wire with short strands hanging off it at intervals, and those strands are longer than the depth of the channel. US patent 6,557,792, filed for a holiday-light storage device, states plainly that icicle light strings are particularly prone to knotting and tangling, and that the descending light strands readily tangle among themselves as well as with the common wire. The patent exists because winding the common wire does not control the drops.
A net light is not a cord at all. It is a mesh, and a mesh wound onto a spool is being rolled into a tube around a hard core, which is the one thing the storage guidance for these sets warns against. The Christmas Light Emporium's guide says to fold carefully and store flat, and to avoid creases that can damage wires.
This is the part that settles it. We read every light storage product we rank and collected the capacity each one commits to in writing.
Published capacity figures across the light storage products we rank| Product | Published capacity | Icicle or net mentioned? |
|---|
| Zober 3-reel bag | 240 ft of strand, 80 ft per reel | Not on the page we read |
| Zober 4-reel bag | 240 ft of strand, 60 ft per reel | Not on the page we read |
| Sterilite light and garland box | 4 reels, up to 400 lights each | Not on the page we read |
| HOMZ light organizer | 4 flat cord wraps per container | Not on the page we read |
| HOMZ string light container | 4 reels | Not on the page we read |
| Install N' Store reels | 75 ft C7 or 150 ft mini per reel | Not on the page we read |
Every figure in the middle column is feet of strand, a count of bulbs, or a number of reels. Not one is a count of icicle drops or an area of netting, and not one listing mentions either shape. That is not a conspiracy; it is a category specified around the single most common product. It does mean that if you buy a reel bag for a set of icicle lights, you are buying on a figure that does not describe what you own.
What we looked for instead
With no product designed for these shapes, the ranking runs on published geometry. Three things, in order.
- A flat surface to wind against, not a channel. A card lets the common wire wrap around it while the drops lie along its face. Only one product we rank publishes flat cord wraps rather than reels.
- Published interior length, for net lights. A net folded in halves rather than quarters puts less bend in each wire, and the length of the box is what decides how few folds you need.
- A rigid shell. Both shapes are stored flat and flat things get stacked on. A fabric bag deforms around whatever is on top of it; the published wall of a latching box does not.
Icicle sets, step by step
- 1
Test the set before anything else
Plug it in while it is still in your hands. A failed icicle set found in January is a note on the box; found in December it is an evening and a shopping trip.
- 2
Unplug and hang the set over something at full length
A door, a rail, the back of a chair. Gravity separates the drops, which is the state you want to keep them in. Untangling them now is far easier than untangling them in a box next year.
- 3
Find the plug end and start there
Same rule as any strand. Wind from the plug so it is the last thing to come off, and it ends up where you need it, nearest the socket.
- 4
Wind the common wire around a flat card, not a spool
The drops should lie against the face of the card rather than hang off an edge. The cord wraps supplied with the HOMZ organizer are this shape, and a stiff offcut of cardboard cut to a little longer than your drop length does the same job for nothing.
- 5
One set per card, and label it by where it hangs
Front gutter, porch rail, left window. The thing you need to know next December is not how many feet are on the card, it is whether this card does the elevation you are standing in front of.
- 6
Cards go flat in a rigid box, drops facing up
Not on edge, and nothing heavy on top. A stack of cards sitting flat in a latching box is the end state; a bag with cards standing up in it is not.
Net lights: fold it like a sheet
Net lights fail at the folds, so the whole method is about having fewer and softer ones. Fold the mesh back on itself in halves, the way you would fold a bedsheet, rather than gathering it or rolling it. Each fold should be a loose curve you could run a hand through, not a pressed edge.
Then the box decides how many folds you need. A 66-quart Ultra publishing 37 3/8 in of interior length takes a four-foot net in a single fold; a cube-shaped bin forces three or four. At 6 7/8 in of interior height it also will not let you pile enough on top of the net to press the folds flat, which in this one case is a feature rather than the limitation it is everywhere else on this site.
If the nets are going into a garage rather than under a bed, use the latching ClearView instead and accept more folds: 19 7/8 x 13 3/8 x 12 7/8 in inside, clear walls so you can identify it without opening it, and a latch so the lid stays on when it is carried by the ends.
The box with the reels taken out
The Sterilite light and garland box is worth a mention for an odd reason: its four reels are published as removable. Take them out and it is a rigid 18.4 x 14.9 x 12.4 in box that stacks, which is a perfectly good home for folded nets and a tray of icicle cards. It is the cheapest way to end up with a rigid light box if you already own cord wraps, and it is the only light product we rank that converts.
Why there is no reel on this page
There are good reels on this site and they are the right answer for most lights. A four-reel bag publishing 60 feet per reel, or a three-reel bag publishing 80, is exactly what a mixed indoor display of mini-light strands wants, and the whole case for them is made on light reels versus bags versus boxes with the arithmetic on light storage by strand count.
They are simply not what an icicle set or a net wants, and buying one because the rest of the category recommends it is how a set comes out of storage in a state. If your display is mostly ordinary strands with one or two shaped sets, the honest answer is both: reels for the strands, and a flat card and a rigid box for the shapes. The one-strand-per-reel rule that makes tangling impossible for the strands is set out on how to store Christmas lights tangle free, and it is a rule about strands, which is exactly the point.