Maintaining the beloved clean appearance and superior functionality of roller shades, solar shades provide UV protection while preserving natural sunlight and unobstructed views to the outdoors.
Benefits such as reducing energy costs and glare control add to the comfort of your home, all while protecting your furniture and floors from damaging sunrays.
Easy-to-clean fabrics come in a variety of colors, textures and transparency levels.
Solar shades consist of a flat piece of fabric attached to an aluminum tube. With the wide variety of lift options such as cord loop, cordless or motorized, solar shades can be easily raised or lowered for light control and privacy.
While solar shades are a great option to reduce glare, decrease the heat that enters through windows, and protect your belongings from UV damage, they are not ideal for privacy. The material used for solar shades is rated by an openness factor, which indicates how tightly the fabric is woven, and therefore how much light and UV radiation passes through. A tighter weave blocks more light and offers more UV protection. Openness factors can range from 1% to 28% or even higher. 1% openness indicates a tight, dense weave that lets in minimal light and blocks 99% of UV rays, while 28% signifies a looser weave that admits significantly more light and UV rays.
Solar shades help with all aspects of sunlight, including heat, light, and unseen UV rays that are commonly associated with sun damage. Solar shades manage solar radiation in three primary ways, via transference, reflection, and dispersion.
Transference refers to the sunlight that passes through your windows and into your home. Solar shades, particularly those with a lower openness factor, limit transference.
Reflection is fairly straightforward: solar shades reflect heat, light, and UV rays, protecting your home, your furnishings, and you from intense sunlight.
Dispersion is where solar shades truly shine. Sunlight is absorbed into the fabric of your solar shades, and then it is subtly dispersed into your home. Because the shades have absorbed much of the solar radiation, the resulting interior light is "softer" and more pleasant.
In addition to having several options for lift control—ranging from simple cord loop to cordless to full motorization—solar shades are available in a wide array of colors, openness factors, and materials, including GREENGUARD®-certified materials that have been tested to ensure their compliance with strict chemical emissions limits. Add-on features such as decorative valances and hem styles allow you to create truly custom solar shades.
Solar shades are an excellent choice for any room that receives a lot of sunlight and where you want to reduce glare and heat, while still allowing some light in and preserving the view to the outside.
