How To Kit Out Your Home For Changeable Weather

Looking out of the window of the Appeal Home Shading office in Bristol as we write this, there is afternoon sunlight dancing through the trees covering the hillside behind us. The clocks are due to “fall back” soon, but we’re enjoying an Indian summer and — oh, hang on, a huge wind has whipped up and a massive rain cloud has turned the sky black.

October’s weather is notoriously changeable, but which month is meteorologically consistent in Britain? In these relatively quiet few months before Christmas, it’s a great time to be thinking about making your home ready for all conditions, perfect for outdoor entertaining or cosying up indoors. Either way, Appeal’s ULTRA® Smart Blinds systems can help.

Appeal For All Seasons

You may be going through four seasons in one day but, with Appeal Home Shading’s extensive collection of powered blinds, you have constant control over light and temperature. With over 35 years of experience and product development behind us, we are the specialist blinds experts. We have blinds specifically suited to glazing that other companies find too challenging, and clever features that are not only convenient but have direct benefits to your energy bills. All this, plus hundreds of designs – styles, materials, colours and patterns – to add that aesthetic flourish to your room.

Blinds For Doors

Bifold doors have revolutionised the way we use our homes. They basically gave us the concept of “indoor-outdoor space” – that wonderful state of flux where one wall opens up and folds away, then either your kitchen becomes part of your garden, or your terrace is a continuation of your living or dining room.

However, bifold doors are like convertible cars – they are designed for the British weather’s best-case scenario. On the coldest days, heat loss through even a double-glazed set of bifold doors will be significantly higher than through a brick wall. In the opposite conditions – intensely bright, direct sunlight – thermal gain is equally sky-high when your wall is made of glass, or the bifolds are left open.

At either extreme, it makes a room uncomfortable and trying to correct it adds to your energy bill. Appeal’s made-to-measure blinds for bifold doors offer protection against excessive heat and cold, not to mention providing privacy and creating an attractive ambience. And they fit neatly into the available space, without interfering with the operation of the doors. We have fitted blinds to bifold doors spanning as many as seven panels, as well as to sliding and French doors. Our design consultants can show you samples of materials that provide the maximum insulation, or allow you a thermal and privacy shield that still allows in soft light and lets you enjoy your view.

It’s All About The Timing

Appeal specialises not simply in electric blinds but in smart blinds systems. Our award-winning ULTRA® PLUS Powered Blinds system – available for Roller, Pleated and Honeycomb Energy Saver blinds, as well as our ClearView™ blinds for gable ends and roof lanterns – is accessed via an intuitive app on iPhone or Android and includes a convenient timer function to control when your blinds raise and lower.

To take your options several steps further, ULTRA® PLUS allows you to set the timer for different times on specific days (when you’re away, having an unpredictable pattern gives a better impression of being home than a set time). Or you can have it track sunset so you don’t lose free heat from the sun when it gets dark. Setting these timers in advance means you can relax and forget about them, but you always have the option of overriding the timings if the weather changes, with a couple of taps in the app. With a Google Nest or Alexa hub, that can even be done with a simple voice command. Total control.

Getting Past The Sensors

If you’d rather the system make all the decisions about raising or lowering the blinds, ULTRA® PLUS can react to all weather conditions, via sensors fitted to your windows to measure temperature and/or light levels.

As soon as the temperature drops below a number you decide on, the sensor will trigger the blinds to lower. When it detects the temperature has gone back up, it will instruct the blinds to raise again. Similarly, if the light sensor detects high levels of glare, it will instruct the blinds to lower to block out the excessive direct sunshine, until it’s passed. If that makes your privacy alarm bells ring, fret not. Both will be overridden by the timer so that your blinds don’t open unexpectedly on a hot summer evening, while you’re dressed only in your unmentionables!

With all these cutting-edge technology options, it’s easy to be unsure which is the right choice for you, but our expert design consultants are equally adept at asking the right questions to understand your lifestyle requirements, as they are helping you narrow down choices of style, fabric, colour and pattern.

When you book a design consultation with us, it will be at a time to suit you and the stress is not on rushing you into a sale, as is sadly sometimes the case with some home improvement companies; the emphasis is firmly on offering you expert advice. The fact is, we are confident we almost always have a solution which will exceed your expectations, and both long-term relationships with customers and word-of-mouth recommendations are all the hard sell we need! Get in touch today and let’s create some blinds for all seasons.