Motorised Blinds

Most windows do not need a motor. If you can stand in front of one and pull the chain, keep your money. The ones worth doing are the windows you quietly gave up on. A conservatory roof panel. The top tier of a bay sitting a foot above head height. Round here that is usually a double-height hall window on one of the newer Culcheth estates.

No cord anywhere on the blind. In a child’s bedroom that ends the cleat argument, and there is nothing to find a home for when the bed gets shifted under the window. A handset works it, and a phone app if you want timers. Voice too, if you already run an assistant. Keep the handset. The hub you buy this year gets discontinued. A remote paired straight to the motor will still work in ten years.

Battery motors live inside the roller tube and want a lead every six to nine months on a blind used daily. On a landing window that is nothing. Three metres up in a conservatory roof it means the ladder out twice a year, so up there Craig hard-wires it or fits a solar panel on the glass. Panels only keep pace on south and west glass. North facing, it will be flat by February. Hard-wiring wants a fused spur and a transformer. Chasing cable through finished plaster wrecks a room. Sensible while the walls are open for a rewire. Rarely worth it otherwise.

Weight settles the rest. A blackout roller past 2.4 metres on a 45mm tube is heavy enough that a battery motor crawls and kills the pack inside a month. That one wants mains.