Do roof windows come with blinds?
No, a blind is a separate order. What the window does come with is the provision for one: a pair of side channels formed into the inner face of the sash, plus fixing points at the head, which a matching blind clips into without a screw going anywhere near the glazing rebate. Order the blind at the same time as the window and it arrives as one delivery and fits in ten minutes.
That distinction is worth being clear about, because a blind on a sloping or near horizontal pane is not the same object as a blind on a wall window. Gravity works against it. A hanging fabric on a slope sags away from the glass, gaps at the edges and lets light past everywhere. The channels are what stop that happening. The units themselves are covered under VELUX window installation.
The side channels already in the frame
Look at the inner face of a modern roof window sash and there are two aluminium or plastic channels running down the sides, usually concealed under a slim cover. The blind’s fabric carries a stiffened side edge or a guide wire that runs in those channels, so the fabric is held tight against the glass along its whole travel.
Two things follow. The blind sits flat rather than hanging, so it works at any angle including near horizontal. And the edges are closed, which is what makes genuine blackout possible. A generic blind cut to size and screwed to the reveal will do neither, however good the fabric.
The blind types, and what each is for
- Roller blinds, a plain fabric on a spring roller, for basic light control and privacy. The cheapest and the most common.
- Blackout blinds, a coated fabric in closed side channels, which is what a bedroom under a slope needs.
- Pleated blinds, a concertina fabric that stops at any point on the pane, useful where you want the top half covered and the bottom clear.
- Venetian blinds, aluminium slats, for directional control in a study or a bathroom.
- Awning blinds, an open mesh fitted outside the glass.
Most of these are ordered in a colour range matched to the frame finish, and the fixing brackets are the same across the internal types.
Blackout in a bedroom under a slope
This is the one that matters most and the one most often underestimated. A roof window in an east facing slope in June is admitting full daylight at half past four in the morning, from a pane that is looking at the sky rather than at a street.
Blackout on a roof window means a coated fabric running in closed channels with a top cassette that seals the head. Without the cassette, light spills over the roller and reflects off the reveal, which people describe as almost blackout and find they cannot sleep under. Specify the full assembly rather than the fabric alone, and order it with the window so the fabric colour and the frame finish are chosen together.
Awning blinds, and the ones that sit outside the glass
An external awning blind is a different tool for a different problem. It is a mesh fabric fitted on the outer face of the sash, and it intercepts solar radiation before it reaches the glass rather than after.
That is the whole point. An internal blind stops light but the heat has already crossed the pane and is in the room. An external mesh takes out the large majority of the solar gain and still lets you see out through it, which suits a south or west facing slope in a room used through the afternoon. They are usually solar powered, since running a cable to the outside of a sash is awkward, and they retract in high wind. Combined with solar control glass, covered under energy efficient rooflights, they make a difficult plane workable.
Manual, electric and solar operation
Manual blinds are operated by a bar on the bottom rail, which is fine while the window is within reach. Above about two and a half metres a pole becomes the only option and gets irritating within a month.
Electric blinds run off the same low voltage supply as an electric opener, which is the argument for making both decisions at once. Solar blinds carry a small photovoltaic cell and a battery in the head rail and need no cable at all, which is what makes them the practical answer in a finished room where lifting the plasterboard is unwelcome. Control is by handset, wall switch or app depending on the system, and the same controller usually drives the window as well.
Matching a blind to a window code
Roof window blinds are sold against the window’s size code, not against a measured drop. Every unit carries a two character code, and the blind for that code is dimensioned to fit the channels in that sash exactly.
So the ordering information you need is the manufacturer, the size code and the generation of the window, all of which are printed on a data plate. On most units that plate is visible on the top of the sash when the window is rotated open, which takes about fifteen seconds to find. Measuring the glass and ordering to that measurement produces a blind that does not fit the channels.
Older windows, and finding a blind that still fits
Blinds do not carry across generations. Manufacturers have changed sash profiles and channel designs several times, so a blind for a current unit will not clip into a frame from the nineteen nineties, and the codes themselves have been reworked.
Where the data plate is legible, a supplier can usually cross reference the old code to a current blind or a discontinued line that is still stocked. Where it has faded, the frame profile can be identified from a photograph of the sash edge. Where nothing fits, the honest answer is often that a window at that age is close to the end of its working life anyway, which is covered under how long a roof window lasts, and the blind decision then rides along with the new unit.
Deciding at order rather than at handover
Three decisions belong at order. Whether the window is being blinded at all, which fabric and which colour, and whether it is manual, electric or solar. Getting those settled means one delivery, one visit and a room that is finished on the day.
The cost of leaving it is not the blind. It is the second visit, the risk that the fabric colour no longer matches a frame finish that has been discontinued, and the six months of an east facing bedroom before somebody gets round to it. Whether a given room actually wants a blind is a separate question, covered under whether roof windows need blinds. Sunspire specifies the blind alongside the unit so the whole assembly arrives together.
Tell us about your roof
We start with the building, the covering and the slope. Then we tell you what will suit it, and what it will cost, as a fixed written number.
- Surveyed before it is priced
- 10-year workmanship guarantee
- Building Control notification handled
- New installations and replacements