Blockout or sunscreen roller blinds: which room needs which?

What each fabric does

Blockout

Blockout fabrics are coated or tightly woven so that almost no light passes through. With the blind down, a room goes dark enough to sleep in during the day. Blockout also gives full privacy day and night, and a light-coloured back on the fabric helps reflect heat back out through the glass.

Sunscreen

Sunscreen fabrics, sometimes called screen or mesh fabrics, are woven with small openings. They are graded by openness, typically from about 1 to 10 percent. The lower the number, the more glare and heat the fabric stops and the less you see out. Darker colours give a clearer view through the fabric, while lighter colours reflect more heat and look brighter from inside.

Light filtering

Light filtering fabrics sit in between. They let soft light through and give privacy, but there is no view out. They suit bathrooms, laundries and rooms that face straight onto the street.

Which room needs which

Queensland has no daylight saving, so on the Gold Coast the summer sun is up before 5 am. That one fact decides a lot of bedroom blinds. Here is where each fabric usually works best.

The night-time privacy catch

The most common surprise with sunscreen blinds comes after dark. During the day, the outside is brighter than the inside, so people outside see only the fabric. At night, with the lights on inside, that flips, and anyone outside can see in, especially through darker and more open fabrics.

If a living room faces the street or a close neighbour, plan for night-time privacy as well as daytime glare. The usual answers are a double roller with a blockout or light filtering blind behind the sunscreen, or curtains for the evening.

Double roller blinds

A double roller has two blinds on one set of brackets, usually a sunscreen at the front and a blockout behind. You lower whichever one the time of day calls for. It is the simplest answer for main bedrooms and for living rooms that face the street.

Fit, light gaps and safety

Even a blockout fabric lets some light in around the edges. A blind fitted inside the window recess leaves a small gap down each side, which is fine for most rooms. For a nursery or media room, fitting the blind on the face of the wall so it overlaps the recess cuts the light around the edges considerably, and side channels reduce it further.

Blinds help with heat, but on west-facing glass most of the heat is best stopped outside, before it reaches the glass. If a room bakes every afternoon, an outdoor blind over that window or patio will do more than any indoor fabric.

Corded blinds must meet the mandatory Australian safety standard for corded internal window coverings, with cords tensioned or kept out of reach. We fit every safety device on the day. In children's rooms, a cordless or motorised blind removes the cord altogether.

Cost and what to expect

As a guide, a roller blind is typically $220 to $480 per blind, supplied and installed, and a motorised roller blind $520 to $980. Size, fabric and fitting all move the price. A double roller costs more than a single blind, because it carries two fabrics on a dual bracket, but usually less than two separate blinds.

We bring the fabric books to the free measure, so you can hold blockout and sunscreen samples against your own windows and see them in the light of each room.

Questions