How to choose the right roller blinds

Choosing the right roller blinds can be challenging,with so many different options readily available. How do you choose the right blind?

At Blinds Downunder we’ve broken down the steps and questions to help you choose the right roller blind for your needs.

Steps for choosing a roller blind:

    1. Familiarise yourself with the room
    2. Selecting a fabric
    3.  Blind configuration
    4. Blind hardware
    5. Budget                                                                                                                                                                                                                            
  1. Familiarise yourself with your room

Familiarise yourself with the room, have a look at colour scheme, room layout, location of daytime sun, size of the window(s)/doors and any potential obstructions around.

Our custom fit roller blinds assist with blocking out external light, reducing direct sun glare and creating privacy and can also help with managing energy efficiency.  

Click image below to see energy benefits of window furnishings. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                      

  1. Selecting a fabric

Blinds Downunder blind ranges suit a variety of applications, our fabrics offer an exciting range of colours and textures. We provide technical specifications on all the fabrics we have listed. This can help you choose the best fabric for your blinds and their desired application.

When choosing your customised roller blind fabric, it is important you select the right fabric and style that will best suit your blind location, based on your room type, light requirements, privacy requirements, your internal colour schemes, design and style.

Depending on how much light you would like to enter your room and what purpose your room is used for. Different fabrics can offer different desired light settings for each room. Below we go through the three fabric types

 Blockout fabrics are solid material and stop a majority of light entering your room.

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 Light Filtering Fabrics allow some light to enter your room, however you may only be able to see shadows or silhouettes outside or inside your room depending on the light, day or night. Lighter fabric colours will provide greater light into your space than darker fabric colours.

 

 Screen Fabrics can provide great versatility as you can see outside and let more light inside your room, depending on the screen fabric you choose. Screen fabrics can also assist with privacy from outside of your house. Screen fabrics are generally 5% open weave, meaning you can see through more or 3% open weave meaning you can see through less. Our screen/light filtering fabrics can also help protect your floor coverings or furniture from damaging UV rays.

 How fabric selection can create better energy efficiency

Our blockout fabrics are considered the best way to reduce heat and heat loss through any external glass window or door. Our blockout fabrics, combined with screen fabrics can assist with your home energy efficiency throughout the year. Careful consideration needs to be made with roller blinds based on how much sun exposure each room may experience. A combination of blockout blinds and screen blinds can add more protection.

 Where can I choose these Fabric Ranges?

Our  fabric ranges can be chosen as both single and double roller blinds through the single and double roller blind section on our webpage. You may wish to view all of our fabric ranges on our Blind Fabrics Australia page prior to heading to our selection pages.

                                                                                                                                                                      

  1. Blind mounting options

When considering how you would like your roller blinds to appear on your windows or doors, there are a few different options which are outlined below.

 

Recess Fit Roller Blinds Front Rolled

Recess fit means the blinds are installed on the inside of the window frame and front rolled (see images below). Generally, recessed blinds need to be front rolled to avoid obstructions/hardware on the window or doors. You need approximately 75mm depth from internal frame to outside of frame for single roller and 98mm depth for double roller blinds. If you were to mount a recess fit blind, you would see around 15mm of light running down each side of the vertical length of the blind and would let light through into the room. A recess fit, front rolled blind can give the illusion of a blind blending into the walls of the room which many people find visually appealing.

    

 

Important notes regarding vertical Light Gaps

Our Roller blinds are approximately 15mm shorter than each side of the finished blind measurement to allow for brackets and blind components. Our measuring sheet and video run through the finer details on correctly measuring.

The image below shows the light which filters through sides of roller blinds when daylight is present. We offer a premium roller blind cassette which eliminates the light. 

                                              

Click image below to watch video link how and why light gaps are required.

                                              

 

 Important note on window obstructions

Obstruction within the internal frame of the window or door, could mean blinds may need to be externally mounted. This mean greater protrusion into the room off the wall, as one or two roller blinds are mounted externally. Examples below.

                            

 

Face Fit Roller Blinds Back Rolled

This means a blind is mounted on the external window face (or architrave) and back rolled (see below image). If a blind is a Face Fit blind and back rolled, light would be more restricted into the room, as the blind would sit closer to the architrave or wall covering, the architrave prevents the15mm gap down the vertical sides, which occurs with the recess fit blind.The top fabric which is rolled around the tube maybe different to the face fabric chosen to face into the room, a pelmet wrapped in the chosen fabric may help to provide your desired look.

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 Face Fit Roller Blind Front Rolled

If you were to choose a blind as a face fitted blind front rolled, the blind would have approximately 50mm gap between the window/door architrave or wall covering. This would also allow more light into the room, compared to a face fitted back rolled blind. You may choose a Front rolled blind as your preferred option to avoid obstruction(s) protruding from window or doors, for example window or door hardware. We recommend if any hardware protrudes further than 50mm to work out the best mounting location, taking into account that you need a solid fixing for your bracket fixing location.

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We have put together a couple of scenarios to assist with your selections of single and double roller blinds below.

Single Roller Blinds installed with single roller brackets

Configuration A: Single roller blind installed inside recess, we find is a great option for sunscreen or light filtering blinds. By installing inside recess, the blind does have light gaps around the perimeter, however It does allow for a blockout blind to be installed face fit on architraves. Front roll recess fit blinds look great and can remove the visual requirements for pelmets/fascia's.

Configuration B: Single Roller blind installed as face fit. By installing single roller on the face of the window, you can prevent light gaps. If the single roller is back rolled. When these blinds are back roller it is sometimes preferred to add a pelmet/fascia, as the back of the fabric shows on the front of the tube and can be a different colour and fabric texture.

Configuration A and B: A combination of recess and face fit single roller blinds, configuration A and B can work really well and mean your blinds are less intrusive into your desired room and can provide one of the best light control options for standard roller blinds, without purchasing a full blockout system, which can be substantially more expensive in price.

Double Roller Blinds installed with double slimline brackets

Configuration A: If you are considering a double roller blind for face fit/recess fit, we generally recommend the screen/light filtering fabrics to be installed closest to the external environment and back rolled. We recommend that front blind be blockout fabric, this blind is closest to the internal of the room and can only be front rolled.

Configuration B:If you require your room dark and can only face fit double blind, you may wish to mount the blockout blind closer to the external environment and sunscreen closer to internal of the room. As the front blind closest to the internal is required to be front rolled and back blind closest to external either back or front rolled. This generally creates approximately 75mm side light gap from architrave for back roll/front roll. By having blockout fabric closer to window, you block some of the light gap when blockout blind is down.However when sunscreen/light filtering blind is down and blockout blind is up, a light gap of approximately 75mm side light gap will occur and may let sun to stream through. Consider orientation of blind when deciding, which method will best suit your needs. We recommend to install a pelmet/fascia if this is your chosen configuration.

 

 What should I consider if I have a Large Window or door

We recommend on windows or doors larger than 2400mm width to split your blind into smaller blinds using intermediate brackets (Linked Roller Blinds). We can provide linking brackets as additional hardware, so blinds can lift unison, or independent to one another.

Important note regarding Vertical gap

One downside to having an intermediate bracket is there will be a gap of approximately 20mm between the internal blind, which will create a light gap down the Vertical drop.

We also recommend for larger blinds over 2500mm to upgrade blind to have a helper spring/spring assist, which we offer as an optional extra instead of the standard gear drive. This helps with the operation of lifting blind up and down and can help with your blind’s overall lifespan.

 

When should I consider installing a Fascia/Pelmets?

To help prevent light entering at the top of your blind, you may consider installing a single or double pelmet. The choice of pelmet will be based on the style you are after, you can choose these from our pelmets range on our website. The size of the pelmet will be based on how many blinds are mounted. The pelmet will always protrude further and can be larger, if there are two external blinds mounted, then if there is one external blind mounted. Fascia's don't block the light at the top of the blind, but provide a visual face aesthetic.

Single Linea Valance Pelmet (Fascia)

 

  1. Blind Hardware 

You can change the look of your blinds by changing your bottom rail style or other fitting colours. This is an inexpensive way to add a little bit more flare to your blinds.

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We recommend too add our optional extra- bumper stop on back rolled face fit blinds, to help prevent paint scuff marks and damage to surface. The bumper stop also helps reduce the sound of bottom rail hitting the window or door architrave, when air passes through your room.

Where, it is not possible to mount a chain safely as per Blind Safety Guidelines on solid fixing surface, we recommend looking at our Zero Gravity blind lift option. Zero Gravity blinds can also work well in areas where you cannot mount a chain safely. (Refer to child safety guidelines)

Watch Zero Gravity video below for further details on how this system works:

 

Plastic chains tend to last better than the stainless steel and chrome chains. You can change colours in our selection on our product page.

 

Motorisation

Blinds Downunder also offer battery motorisation. Motorisation requires a battery charger to charge individual batteries approximately every 8 months, blinds stay in their fitted position when charging. The rest of the time you can use a remote control or create automation throughout your house using a hub to raise and drop your blinds. Battery motorisation has came a long way in the last few years and creates a great option for a clean look free of blind chords.

Alpha motors have an app that is extremely versatile and easy to set up. It controls all Alpha motorised products individually, by area or the whole house at once from anywhere in the world with an internet connection. All functionality can be scheduled to operate automatically. With the Alpha Neo Link Box, you can download the free app for either android or apple and control all your devices and groups directly or through automations functions available. Alpha Neo is compatible with both Google Home and Amazon Alexa and Siri.

Click Alpha Motors remote image below for further details on how the motorisation system works;

 

When should I upgrade Blind Tubes size?

Any blind over 2100mm, we automatically upgrade to a 50mm tube. For ascetic reasons, we recommend upgrading tubes to any blinds smaller than the 2100mm length in the same room without a pelmet, you can upgrade your tube sizes as an optional extra. This means all blinds will look ascetically the same in your room. 

 

 

 

  1. Budget

We always recommend you choose the best Fabric type for your purpose. We have a large variety of Fabrics which can meet your desired price range. By selecting our price Filter on the right-hand side of our product page, you can choose a pricing based on lowest to highest. In our Blockout Range Shaw Vibe and Duo Block are our Lowest priced fabric, In our light filtering range price categories are similar to our screen Range.Our Shaw Aventus Sunscreen is our lowest priced fabric. We always recommend you try the different options as our lowest priced fabrics may meet some of your expectations and not other parts.

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