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.
