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November 30, 2021

Save Money on Winter Heating by Upgrading Your Blinds

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Save Money on Winter Heating by Upgrading Your Blinds

Did you know the quality of your blinds can have a profound effect on how much money you spend each month? Heating and cooling for your home can cost a fortune, especially if your home is poorly insulated. Your windows are the weakest point in your home’s insulation. What you use to cover them and, therefore, insulate them, determines how much heat you lose or gain from the outside weather. Here’s how you can save money on winter heating by upgrading your blinds.

Buy Blinds with Layers

To start, let’s talk about how insulation works, in simple terms. Insulation is an addition of layers used to prevent heat transference. The more layers there are, the harder time heat has traveling through them. Think of how you would try to muffle a sound. If you scream into the open air, it’s going to be loud. If you scream into a pillow, it’s going to be muffled. That’s because the sound waves struggle to travel through all of the fabric and filling in your pillow. They come out the other side a lot weaker and, therefore, quieter. It’s the same with temperature.

The more layers your blinds have, the better they will be at insulating your window. Blinds with layers of fabric work a lot better than traditional, slatted blinds at insulating.

Some blinds you might want to consider are:

  • Honeycomb Blinds
    Honeycomb blinds are the kind of fabric blinds that are kind of puffy when closed. When you open them, the layers of fabric collapse against each other as they pull up. 
  • The Ninet
    Ninet blinds are similar in design to honeycomb blinds. However, instead of having just fabric, they’re designed with slatted blinds between the layers of fabric. This allows for lighting control even when the blinds are closed.
  • Sheer Vertical Blinds
    Sheer vertical blinds are a beautiful cross between the lighting control of blinds and the elegance of curtains. These blinds are made of two layers of draping fabric designed to block out unwanted light and cold.
  • Roller Shades
    Roller shades are solid pieces of material that roll up to open. These are the type of blinds you see used in classrooms a lot. They work just as well at home. The thickness of the material is more effective at insulating than the thin layers from honeycomb blinds, so a single layer is perfectly adequate.

Ensure Full Coverage

Did you know the entire surface of your window will transfer heat? The temperature inside your house really wants to equalize with the temperature outside your house. Because your windows are thin, they’re the weakest point of insulation in the structure of your house. In the winter, that means the heat you’re running will leak out through your windows – even if they’re sealed perfectly.

To ensure windows are insulated, you need to completely cover the window with your choice of blinds. The bigger the gap between the blinds and the window frame, the more heat can reach the window and leak out. Therefore, using roller shades with side channels is a great way to completely close off the window. For blinds that don’t use side channels, ensuring they’re cut to fit as nicely as possible is important for successful insulation.

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October 31, 2021

How Honeycomb Blinds Help Insulate Your Home

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How Honeycomb Blinds Help Insulate Your Home

Home insulation is one of the least considered aspects of interior decoration, but an important one. Did you know your blinds play a huge part in your home insulation? If your home has poor insulation, Domir Blinds recommends you consider honeycomb blinds. Honeycomb blinds help insulate your home, saving you money and improving comfort.

How Do Blinds Insulate?

The short story is, temperature travels through objects the same way it travels through air. The thinner a barrier, the less it prevents that. What that means is, your windows are a weak point in your home’s insulation. While your walls do a great job of blocking out the cold or heat from outdoors, your windows struggle. Therefore, adding blinds or curtains over your window improve your home’s insulation. Any unwanted temperature that gets past the window will then have to battle with your window coverings.

The Benefits of Improved Insulation

When you insulate your home by covering your windows, there are a lot of benefits. The most important of those benefits, to many people, is the lower cost of heating or cooling your home. If it’s summer, the less hot air coming in from outside means the less you run your AC. If it’s winter, the less warm air is escaping your home means the less you run your heater. That means saving money in the long run.

However, we can’t ignore comfort as well. While saving money is important to many people, there’s another element to insulation. The less fluctuation there is in your home temperature, the more comfortable you are. Don’t you hate it when the peak of summer or winter comes around and you’re constantly going back and forth between too hot and too cold? Your AC or heater struggles to keep up, so the outdoor temperature will sneak its way in and then the AC or heater will overcompensate for it. With better insulation, your home temperature can stay more consistent, meaning you stay more comfortable.

Are Honeycomb Blinds Unique?

Honeycomb blinds are great insulators for one main reason: they’re made with multiple layers of fabric and fit the frame of your window. That means unwanted cold or heat can’t sneak around the sides of your honeycomb blinds. It will have to get through the blinds if it wants to affect your home’s temperature. The more layers a set of blinds has, the more difficult it is for that temperature to get past.

In that regard, honeycomb blinds are not unique. There are many kinds of blinds with multiple layers that make great insulators. Honeycomb blinds are simply one of the most popular.

Other Insulating Blinds

If you’re interested in insulating blinds with multiple layers, you should also consider the Ninet. Domir Blinds’ Ninet design is similar in concept to honeycomb blinds. What sets them apart is the addition of slatted blinds between the layers of fabric. That makes the light control capabilities of the Ninet superior to honeycomb blinds, which function more like curtains in that they can be opened or closed.

Order Before Winter

Save money on heating this winter and insulate your home by ordering your insulating honeycomb blinds or Ninet now. Give us a call at Domir Blinds if you have questions about our blinds or how to order. We look forward to hearing from you.

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Blog Everyday Blinds Insulating Blinds
October 31, 2021

Which Is Better: Blinds or Curtains?

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Which Is Better: Blinds or Curtains?

When shopping for window coverings for your home, there comes an age-old question: blinds or curtains? For many of us, a preference for one or the other will make the actual benefits of each irrelevant. For others, functionality and purpose are a bit more important. So, let’s dive into what makes each of them unique.

Elegance

When it comes to appearance, you might think curtains are, hands down, the most elegant. However, we can’t pit curtains against the cheap standard of aluminum-slatted blinds. When compared with something fabric, like honeycomb blinds or the Ninet, elegance becomes completely subjective.

There’s the controlled, refined elegance of fabric blinds. They’re always in the expected shape, like coloring inside the lines. Then there’s the flowing, carefree fabric of curtains. They take any form they want. You can position them in loops over a curtain rod or let them hang free. You can even layer different colors and fabric types for a unique and artistic appearance. Which type of elegance suits you depends largely on your interior design.

Insulation

Insulation is a frequently ignored element of choosing window coverings. However, if you prefer to keep a tight hold on your finances, maximum window insulation is a game changer. Keep your AC or heater from running unnecessarily by insulating your windows year round.

Layered blinds, like honeycomb and the Ninet are great for insulation. They fill the entire window frame when closed, blocking incoming or outgoing heat from infiltrating or escaping through the window. Curtains, when closed can provide an equal amount of insulation. The downside to both options is that keeping the window coverings closed is required for insulation. Would you rather have blinds that are closed or curtains that are closed? This is where combinations can often be the best solution.

Light Control

When it comes to light control, blinds are typically the winner. After all, curtains typically offer very little control over sunlight. With good curtains, you can go from exposed to blackout. However, with blinds like the Ninet, you can go from complete exposure to blackout, and anything in between, with the help of the built-in slats, nestled between the layers of fabric.

Solutions

So, the question is, which one is better? While style and preference play into it, we think these are the best solutions:

Combinations

First, consider a combination of blinds and curtains. With blinds that offer sun screening when closed, you can leave them closed while framing the window with beautiful curtains. However, if you decide you want complete exposure, you can open both. Or, if you need total darkness, closing both will offer a complete blackout in most cases.

Sheer Vertical Blinds

On the other hand, we can’t forget sheer vertical blinds – the best of both worlds. Sheer vertical blinds look, visually, like curtains. However, the dual-layer design offers multiple levels of exposure. Completely opened means full exposure while closing the first, sheer layer means sun screening and privacy. Finally, the last layer gives you total blackout. This level of layered light control comes with the beauty and elegance most people use standard curtains for. 

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September 30, 2021

The Best Designs for Hospital Blinds

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The Best Designs for Hospital Blinds

Hospitals come with a unique set of needs when it comes to blinds. Therefore, Domir Blinds has put together a short list of the best designs for hospital blinds. Take a look and see how the different styles impact a stay in the hospital.

Total Blackout

The first style that’s great for hospital blinds is blackout shades. What do blackout shades bring to the table that can be of use in a hospital setting? First off, their blackout quality makes sleeping during the day easier than ever for recovering patients. Sunlight can be a huge interruption when trying to get some peace after an operation. Blackout shades make recovery smoother and more comfortable.

Plus, blackout shades come with some functional bonuses as well. For one thing, they’re pretty resilient. That makes the abundance of patients that move in and out of a room no problem. Visitors can lean up against a blackout shade without bending anything out of shape. Plus, shades are easy to clean. Because they’re one flat piece, they can easily be pulled down, sprayed with cleaner, and wiped down whenever necessary. You can’t say the same for dust-collecting, flimsy, metal-vaned blinds.

Indirect Sunlight

For other areas of a hospital, needing extensive sleep during the day to recover isn’t entirely necessary. Shorter stays or less intensive reasons for staying make blackout shades excessive and unhelpful. For example, someone staying in a postnatal ward may want to nap, but is less likely to sleep away the whole day in darkness.

For wards like this, blinds that offer indirect sunlight are the best option. Honeycomb blinds, the Ninet, and roller screens will all filter light. That means no direct sunlight, but plenty of sunshine glow coming in through the fabrics.

Roller screens are different from the other options in two ways. They’re easy to wipe down, as they’re one piece, like blackout shades. Furthermore, they’re possible to see through. Patients can look outside through the screen, but no one outside will be able to see in. This one-way feature makes roller screens great for first-floor rooms.

However, honeycomb blinds and the Ninet come with a bonus of their own: they look so cozy. These two blind styles are both lined with fabric, making them look soft and comfortable. Comfort is a key factor in most hospital rooms. 

Complete Control

For wards with patients who are more capable of moving around the room, blinds with more control may be worthwhile. The same can be said for waiting rooms, where visitors may want to adjust the blinds.

Magic Lite allows the user to go from complete blackout to complete exposure. The sleek design looks professional and attractive. Plus, the slats are solid, making them easier to wipe down than flimsy, aluminum alternatives. The only real downside is that there’s nothing filtering the light, which means any light coming in will be direct sunlight. For some, this may matter. Though, in the grand scheme of things, it’s not likely to be much of a problem.

If you’re ready to talk blinds, ask questions, or get help with an order, call us today at Domir Blinds. We want to help your hospital become the best version of itself.

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