What Size Is a Blind Concealment Profile?
Blind concealment profiles, or ‘blind boxes’, are aluminium profiles designed to hide your blind from view when it’s open.
The blind concealment profile is fitted into the ceiling or wall cavity, so when you close the blind, the fabric seems to appear out of nowhere. These profiles can also be used to conceal curtain tracks.
Concealment profiles work best with electric shading – it can be tricky to access a chain or crank handle if it has been concealed into a recess pocket.
One of the most well-known manufacturers of blind boxes is Blindspace.
The benefit of using these profiles, instead of just fitting your blind straight into a cavity, is that these boxes have removable panels that fully conceal your blinds yet still give you access to the blind for maintenance or replacement. It also makes it much easier to install because the aluminium profile gives you a clean and level recess to fit into.
Blind concealment profiles are becoming more and more popular as the desire for modern and clean-looking shading increases. Hiding the roller, side channels or guidewires when the blind is open leaves you with a completely clear window recess.
As these profiles have only become mainstream in recent years, there’s still a lot of confusion surrounding them. The biggest question we hear is, ‘how big does the concealment profile need to be?’
In this blog we’re going to break down what size profile we recommend for each of our systems, using Blindspace profiles as an example.
How much space do I need for my concealment profile?
When choosing the correct size profile, you need to consider two main things; how big the blind is, and how much of it you’re trying to hide.
One thing to consider is how much of the blind you want to hide. For example, if you’ve chosen a bespoke, custom-coloured hembar for your roller blind that perfectly matches the décor of your room, you may not want to always hide this away.
If you want to achieve the fully concealed ‘invisible blinds’ look, you’ll want to hide the hembar as well.
This can have an impact on what size profile you choose. If you do want to conceal the blind hembar, your profile will need to be taller than it would be for the same blind if you aren’t concealing the hembar. This is to make sure that there’s physically enough space in the profile to fit the hembar underneath where the blind is mounted.
Our Ellipse 43 hembar is specifically designed to be easy to conceal.
The elliptical shape means it can slide into the concealment profile opening easily, and the fabric wrap means it will be quieter than an aluminium hembar when it makes contact with the profile.
The size of the blind is going to be the biggest indicator of which size of profile you need to choose. Each system has a different tube size, roll up diameter depending on fabric thickness and blind drop, different bracket size and a different hembar depending on the supplier, the customisation etc, so ‘one size fits all’ really doesn’t apply when choosing a concealment profile.
Which concealment profile do I need for my Umbra system?
Free-hanging roller blinds
Generally, most of our free-hanging roller blinds will fit into the same profile. Most Orbis, Sirios and small Helios blinds (with a roll up of less than 76mm) fit neatly into the S100x100SS Blindspace box.
For most Helios blinds or Sirios, if it has a big roll-up (over 76mm), we advise sizing up to the S130x130SS profile, or even the S135x155 profile for Helios if it has a rollup of over 86mm diameter or has a cassette.
All of these sizes will be big enough to conceal the brackets, tube and hembar of your blind. When getting your quote for your blinds from Umbra, we’ll be able to tell you which of these sizes you need to achieve this.
Blackout blinds
For our KuroLok zipped-edge blackout blind systems, you will need a bigger concealment profile to hide the cassette as well as the larger hembar that comes as standard on this system.
For KuroLok systems with our 100mm cassette, we recommend the C135x200 Blindspace profile. This profile will fit our 100mm headbox, though we recommend removing the front cover off of the cassette when fitting it into Blindspace to give you more room within the box. It will also fit the Type Z hembar. This profile should be able to fully conceal the hembar.
Blindspace also make corresponding concealment profiles for our zipped-edge side channels. There are two different depth profiles available; 50mm and 80mm. wherever possible we suggest choosing 80mm profiles as this will allow you to hide any wrinkling that is characteristic of zipped-edge fabrics.
If space is tight, the 50mm profiles will still fully conceal the side channels, but some of that wrinkling might still be visible on the edge.
The important thing to note when specifying a Blindspace profile for the cassette and side channels on the same blind is that the width must be the same. So for example, if you choose a profile that begins with ‘C135’ for the cassette, your side channel profile must also begin with ‘C135’ so that they can be fitted together.
If you are using our KuroLok 125 system which has the bigger cassette, we recommend the C155x200 Blindspace profile.
Rooflight blinds
Our KuroLok 100 RL system will fit into the same Blindspace profile as its gravity drop counterpart as the hardware is the same size, the C135x200 profile. Similarly, the KuroLok 125 RL system will fit into the C155x200 profile. You can also use the same profiles for the side channels on both the rooflight and gravity drop KuroLok systems.
For our KuroLok Twin RL system, there are two different systems depending on whether the blind is standard or reverse orientation.
If it’s standard orientation, we suggest allowing for the C135x260 Blindspace profile, and the C135x80 profile again for the side channels. This will give you enough space to fully conceal the staggered headboxes.
If it’s reverse orientation, you’ll need a much taller profile. We recommend a C210x160 custom Blindspace profile to give you enough space to fit the stacked headboxes. You will then need a C210x80 profile for the side channels.
In summary:
| Umbra System | Recommended Blindspace profile |
|---|---|
| Orbis | S100x100ss |
| Sirios | S100x100ss S130x130SS (For roll up over 76mm) |
| Helios | S100x100ss (For very small Helios) S130x130SS S135x155 (For roll up over 86mm) |
| KuroLok 100 & KuroLok 100 RL | C135x200 (For headbox) C135x50 or C135x80 (For side channel) |
| KuroLok 125 & KuroLok 125 RL | C155x200 (For headbox) C155x50 or C155x80 (For side channel) |
| KuroLok Twin RL – Standard | C135x260 (For headbox) C135x50 or C135x80 (For side channel) |
| KuroLok Twin RL – Reverse | C210x160 (For headbox) C210x50 or C210x80 (For side channel) |
Still confused? Don’t worry, the Umbra sales team will be able to advise you on exactly which system you need for your blinds when you get a quote from us.
Or check out these helpful drawings of the profiles from Blindspace:
For more information about our systems, check out our Systems page: