How to choose the right Zebra Blinds
Choosing the right Zebra Blinds is a relatively easy decision.
At Blinds Downunder we’ve broken down the steps and questions to help you choose the right Zebra Blinds for your needs.
Steps for choosing a roller blind:
- Familiarise yourself with the room
- Selecting a fabric
- Blind configuration
- Blind hardware
- Budget
- Familiarise yourself with your room
Familiarise yourself with the room, have a look at colour scheme, room layout, location of daytime sun, size of the window(s)/doors and any potential obstructions around.
Our custom fit Zebra Blinds assist with blocking out external light, reducing direct sun glare and creating privacy and can also help with managing energy efficiency.
Click image below to see energy benefits of window furnishings.
- Selecting a fabric
Blinds Downunder Zebra Blind feature Premium Louvolite Vision Fabrics and suit a variety of applications, Louvolite Vision Fabrics offer an exciting range of colours and textures. We provide technical specifications on all the Vision Fabrics we have listed. This can help you choose the best fabric for your Zebra Blinds and their desired application.
When choosing your customised Zebra Blind fabric, it is important you select the right fabric and style that will best suit your Zebra Blind location, based on your room type, light requirements, privacy requirements, your internal colour schemes, design and style.
Depending on how much light you would like to enter your room and what purpose your room is used for. Different fabrics can offer different desired light settings for each room.
Zebra Blinds offer great versatility as a blind featuring a blockout fabric, combined with a light filtering or sunscreen fabric, all connected as one loop of fabric. Zebra Blinds are a streamline and compact option.
Vision Fabrics Feature a combination of blockout as a set and one of light filter or sunscreen.
Blockout fabrics are solid material and stop a majority of light entering your room.
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Light Filtering Fabrics allow some light to enter your room, however you may only be able to see shadows or silhouettes outside or inside your room depending on the light, day or night. Lighter fabric colours will provide greater light into your space than darker fabric colours.
Screen Fabrics can provide great versatility as you can see outside and let more light inside your room, depending on the screen fabric you choose. Screen fabrics can also assist with privacy from outside of your house. Screen fabrics are generally 5% open weave, Our screen/light filtering fabrics can also help protect your floor coverings or furniture from damaging UV rays.
How fabric selection can create better energy efficiency
Louvolite Vision Fabrics can assist with your home energy efficiency throughout the year. Careful consideration needs to be made with Zebra Blinds based on how much sun exposure each room may experience. When open Zebra Blinds often have a gap between window sill and first stripe.Gap can vary based on stripe size. Our Vision Fabrics Samples page documents Louvolite fabric energy raiting, based on a number scale.
Where can I choose these Fabric Ranges?
Our Louvolite Vision Fabric ranges can be chosen on our Zebra Blind Selection webpage. You may wish to view all of our fabric ranges on our Blind Fabrics Australia page prior to heading to our selection pages.
- Blind mounting options
When considering how you would like your Zebra Blinds to appear on your windows or doors, there are a few different options which are outlined below.
Recess Fit Roller Zebra Blinds
Recess fit means the Zebra Blinds are installed on the inside of the window frame. Recessed Fit Zebra Blinds need to avoid obstructions/hardware on the window or doors. You need approximately 50mm depth from internal frame to outside of frame for Zebra Blinds to fit. If you were to mount a recess fit Zebra Blind, you would see around 15mm of light running down each side of the vertical length of the Zebra Blind and would let light through into the room. A recess fit, Zebra Blind can blend into the walls of the room which many people find visually appealing.
Important notes regarding vertical Light Gaps
Our Zebra Blinds are approximately 15mm shorter than each side of the finished blind measurement to allow for brackets and blind components. Our measuring sheet run through the finer details on correctly measuring your Zebra Blind.
Our premium C70 cassette pelmet eliminates the light entering at the top of Zebra Blind.
Important note on window obstructions
Obstruction within the internal frame of the window or door, could mean Zebra Blinds may need to be externally mounted. This mean greater protrusion into the room off the wall mounted externally.The C70 cassette pelmet would protrude approximately 97mm into the room. Examples of obstructions below.
Face Fit Roller Zebra Blinds
This means a blind is mounted on the external window face (or architrave). If a Zebra Blind is a Face Fit, light would be more restricted into the room, as the blind would sit closer to the architrave or wall covering, the architrave prevents the 15mm gap down the vertical sides, which occurs with the recess fit Zebra Blinds.
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We have put together a couple of scenarios to assist with your selections of Zebra Blinds below.
Zebra Blinds;
Configuration A: Installing Zebra Blind inside recess, looks streamline, sharp and visually pleasing. The Zebra Blind does have light gaps around the perimeter. If light isn't a major factor, this is a great choice. Installing inside the recess can also reduce pricing considerably.
Configuration B: Zebra Blind installed as face fit. By installing Zebra Blind on the face of the window, you can prevent light gaps. One of the draw backs is the C70 cassette pelmet protrudes 97mm into room, fabric can be interfered with more than it would in a protected recess.This option would be considered better for sleeping purposes.
What should I consider if I have a Large Window or door
Zebra Blinds are only warrantied too 2200mm long. We manufacture to maximum 2800mm Zebra Blinds. We recommend on windows or doors larger than 2200mm width to split your blind into smaller blinds.We cannot provide linking brackets with our Zebra Blinds.
Important note regarding Vertical gap on side by side Zebra Blinds
One downside to having two Zebra Blinds side by side is there will be a gap of approximately 30mm between both blinds, which will create a light gap down the Vertical drop. If you are willing to order your blind over the warrantied size, we would recommend this to a maximum of 2800mm.
Zebra Blinds larger over 2500mm are upgrade to have a helper spring/spring assist. This helps with the operation of lifting Zebra Blind up and down and can help with your blind’s overall lifespan.
- Blind Hardware
You can change the look of your blinds by changing your bottom rail style or other fitting colours. This is an inexpensive way to add a little bit more flare to your blinds.
Plastic chains tend to last better than the stainless steel and chrome chains. You can change colours in our selection on our product page.
Motorisation
Blinds Downunder also offer battery motorisation. Motorisation requires a battery charger to charge individual batteries approximately every 8 months, blinds stay in their fitted position when charging. The rest of the time you can use a remote control or create automation throughout your house using a hub to raise and drop your blinds. Battery motorisation has came a long way in the last few years and creates a great option for a clean look free of blind chords.
Alpha motors have an app that is extremely versatile and easy to set up. It controls all Alpha motorised products individually, by area or the whole house at once from anywhere in the world with an internet connection. All functionality can be scheduled to operate automatically. With the Alpha Neo Link Box, you can download the free app for either android or apple and control all your devices and groups directly or through automations functions available. Alpha Neo is compatible with both Google Home and Amazon Alexa and Siri.
Click Alpha Motors remote image below for further details on how the motorisation system works;
- Budget
We always recommend you choose the best Louvolite Vision Fabric for your purpose. We have a large variety of Louvolite Vision Fabrics, which can meet your desired price range. By selecting our price Filter on the right-hand side of our Sample product page, you can choose a pricing based on lowest to highest. On our Selection page lowest pricing starts at tier 1 ($) and goes up to tier 5 ($$).We always recommend you try the different options as our lowest priced fabrics may meet some of your expectations and not other parts.
