‘What Fabric Should I Use for My Roller Blinds?”: How to Recommend the Right Blind Fabric for Your Customers Needs
With so many options to choose from for roller blind fabrics, recommending the correct one for your customer can be daunting.
There are a few questions you can ask your customer to help you identify their needs, and which fabrics meet them.
In this blog we will guide you through the questions you need to ask, and recommend a few fabrics that will satisfy your customer.
Location
The first question you need to ask is where the blinds are going. There are a few reasons for this.
The first reason is that there is usually a common requirement for blinds in specific rooms. For example, blinds in bedrooms are generally needed for total light exclusion and privacy, whereas blinds for a living room are usually needed for privacy and shading.
Also, some rooms will have specific requirements that won’t be relevant in other rooms. Bathrooms for example are very warm and moist, so the fabric you use there will need to be moisture-resistant and anti-fungal. This isn’t something you’ll need to worry about for most other rooms in the home. Therefore, not every fabric will be suitable for every room, even if the ‘key’ requirement e.g. privacy, is the same.
The Key Requirement
Even once you know where the blinds are going there are still many options to choose from for fabrics.
The next question you need to ask is what your customer’s key requirement is. Their key requirement will be the reason that they decided they needed blinds at all, so it’s important to make sure this need is met. Otherwise, your customer may end up dissatisfied.
Here are a few requirements we get asked for regularly, and what we would recommend in each scenario.
‘I need privacy in my windows’
Privacy is a very common reason why people choose to get roller blinds. For those with street-facing windows, or where the public pavement gives passers-by a clear view into their home, privacy is essential.
A dimout fabric is a popular choice where privacy at night is required. A dimout fabric still allows some light through the window but doesn’t block it completely.
The main benefit of a dimout fabric over other light-filtering fabrics is that at night you won’t be able to see through the fabric from either side. This makes dimouts a popular choice for living rooms and other communal spaces where total blackout isn’t required.
If daytime privacy is their main concern but isn’t really an issue at night, a voile fabric might be sufficient. Voile fabrics, sometimes referred to as ‘sheers’, are very translucent and allow a view through the fabric. They let a lot of natural light through the fabric whilst diffusing glare. Voiles still allow a view through the fabric but add some privacy. During the day, most people won’t be able to look into your home through the blind.
For bedrooms where privacy is required, this is usually in conjunction with light exclusion. Light is the biggest external factor affecting sleep. Light plays an essential role in regulating the circadian rhythm and affects the production of melatonin, which is a hormone released by the pineal gland in the brain at night, and has long been associated with control of the sleep–wake cycle.
The way light alters circadian rhythm depends on the timing of light exposure. When light is perceived early in the morning, it pushes the sleep schedule earlier. Light exposure in the evening pushes the sleep cycle backwards toward a later bedtime.
Regular disruption to your sleep, like insomnia, can stop your brain from functioning as it should. During a good night’s sleep, your brain prepares itself for the following day, forming new neuronal pathways to help you learn and remember important information.
Installing blackout blinds is a great line of defence against daylight and light pollution entering the room. The material used in blackout blinds is specially designed to cut out light and prevent the morning sunrise from disrupting sleep.
‘I need to reduce glare but I still want a view out of the window’
Where glare and excess sunlight are causing an issue but your customer still wants to enjoy the view from their windows, screen fabrics can be a great option.
Screen fabrics are always one of the most popular choices for roller blind fabric in both the commercial and residential sectors. A screen fabric is one that is woven together to provide light control whilst retaining a view out.
Screen fabrics are effective at reducing glare and harsh light, whilst still providing the user with a view out of the window and access to natural daylight. Screen fabrics also offer daytime privacy, but less so at night where some screen fabrics can actually give passers-by a view into your home, so that’s something to keep in mind.
‘I need blinds to keep the heat in during winter’
According to Safestyle Windows, around 18% of the total heat within a house is lost through the windows. This heat loss through windows is caused by radiation through glazing and convection, and conducted through the window frame.
Metal-backed fabrics have a thin metal layer on the back of the fabric, like the name suggests. This additional layer of metal acts as an insulator, as well as still reflecting and blocking some heat. This makes metal-backed fabrics ideal for spaces where heat loss is a concern. They can also help to reduce overheating in the summer.
There are many reasons why heat loss should be a concern for your customer. These include:
- Increased energy costs caused by artificial heating
- Lack of control over internal temperatures
- Low morale in occupants caused by draughts
- Reduced property value due to poor insulation
Combining a metal-backed roller blind with a curtain can further keep the room insulated. Curtains or drapes help to insulate a room by reducing the amount of air exchange between a cold window and the rest of the room.
‘My house is too hot in the summer’
Unprotected glass is the greatest source of heat entering a building. As temperatures continue to rise, in part thanks to global warming, keeping a home cool and comfortable can seem challenging.
A fabric with a white backing is always going to be the best choice for reflecting heat away from the room. White is highly reflective which means that when sunlight, and therefore the heat from that sunlight, hits the fabric it will be reflected towards the window. Regardless of the colour of the fabric face, a white-backed fabric will be an excellent heat reflector.
Both blackout and sunscreening fabrics are available with a white backing so you can have the added benefit of heat reflection regardless of how much light you want to let into a room.
‘My room is too loud – can blinds help absorb sound?’
There are two ways that roller blinds can help to reduce noise in a room, depending on the source.
If the room seems loud because it’s spacious and echo-y, then an acoustic fabric will be the best option. Acoustic fabrics absorb sound, keeping it from bouncing around the room and creating echo. Sound bounces from hard surface to hard surface, so adding acoustic fabric to the window blinds can help reduce echoes and stop sound from travelling.
If the issue is that there is too much sound coming into a room from an external source, such as a busy road, then fabric with a thick foam backing will be a better option. Thick fabrics act as a barrier to sound and will stop it from entering the room at all. These thicker backings are usually found on blackout fabrics as they also block light completely.
‘There are bugs in my house in the summer’
Warm weather brings insects with it and for a lot of Brits the issue of bugs coming in through windows can be a huge worry.
There are specifically designed flyscreen fabrics that are made of a very closely woven mesh material that is tight enough to stop even small bugs from passing through. However, they block very little light from coming through and are essentially completely transparent.
Flyscreen blinds are usually popular in kitchens where windows tend to be open, or there are doors to the garden. Both of these are a magnet for insects. Flyscreen fabrics also still allow a breeze through the fabric as it’s made of a mesh material, so cooking smells can still escape the room. Typically, privacy and shading aren’t a huge requirement for kitchens as they’re not occupied throughout the day and they are typically at the rear of the house and not street-facing.
If your client did want daytime privacy without blocking light, and still stopping bugs from coming through, then a 10% openness screen fabric would be a more suitable option than a flyscreen fabric.
‘I’m worried about my blinds getting mouldy in a damp bathroom’
Bathrooms are notoriously warm and damp rooms, which creates a breeding ground for mould and bacteria. Even a well ventilated room can still fall victim to these issues.
Anti-microbial substances work against bacteria, mould and fungi. Anti-microbial substances offer a greater level of product protection by continuously inhibiting the growth of microbes on surfaces for very long periods of time (Information from Microban).
Anti-microbial fabrics tend to use silver or zinc as an active ingredient. Zinc offers great protection against the presence of fungi like mould, mildew, rusts and yeasts. Anti-microbial and anti-fungal fabrics can be used in areas that are prone to moisture such as outdoor spaces, swimming pools, bathrooms etc.
Find out more about anti-microbial fabrics here.
So there you have it, a guide for which fabric type to recommend based on your customers key requirements.
Of course, within each of these categories, there are still a lot of fabrics to choose from, but hopefully this helps you to narrow down the best options to recommend. The final choice will come down to aesthetics and customers’ preference.
To view Umbra’s full fabric collection, click here.
To request fabric samples, or to speak to one of our experts to find the perfect fabric for your next project, get in touch with a member of our sales team.