Reduce Your Heating Bill with Cellular Shades

With the rapidly and wildly rising energy costs, many people are eagerly looking to reduce the heating bill in any way that is feasible. One simple and effective way to reduce the cost of your next heating bill is to install cellular shades. Honeycomb blinds are very popular window treatment solutions and a key component in efficiently and effortlessly saving energy while helping to maintain the indoor temperature in your home or office.

Easy to install cellular blinds can help reduce your heating bills this winter and even your cooling bills next summer. In fact, out of all manufactured blinds, honeycomb blinds are by far the most energy efficient option. No other type of blind comes close to the energy efficiency of honeycomb-shaped blinds.

Here is how cellular shades work to save money on the heating bill:
Honeycomb blinds strategically trap air inside their unique “honeycomb” shaped pockets. These pockets become instant insulators that stop or slow down the transfer of heat between your windows and the rest of your home. When this air stays trapped within the cellular blinds, your heater kicks on less, thus, saving energy and decreasing your heating bill. Cellular shades with larger cell pockets provide better insulation as they can hold more air within the cells. Also, honeycomb blinds with additional layers provide even better insulation. Black out cellular fabrics provide optimal insulation.

Save Money All Year Long
Cellular blinds can also work wonders in the summer months. Just as they trap cold air in the winter, cellular blinds do the same exact thing with hot air in the summer. Whether you are running the air conditioning or heat, it doesn’t matter. Either way, cellular-shaped shades are going to save you money.

Stylish, Useful, and Affordable
Windows are often a source of thermal inefficiency in a home or office. Older windows can be drafty for a variety of reasons. Some are single pane windows and lack the additional sheet of glass which helps trap air and add insulation. Other windows use wood or metal frames and don’t seal very well, leaking thermal energy. Modern double and triple pane windows are designed with energy efficiency in mind. Cellular blinds help trap additional air like the additional panes of glass in modern windows. While cellular shades over single pane windows are not as efficient as double pane windows, cellular blinds are less expensive than installing new windows. Cellular blinds can be a worthwhile investment until you are able to replace your windows and are durable enough that you can hang them right back up after you do.

If you are looking for an easy, stylish way to slash the cost of your heating bill, look no further than honeycomb blinds. These highly attractive and affordable blinds are available in several different colors and styles to match your home décor. Honeycomb blinds save money and look good while doing it.

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Keep Both Light and Privacy with Top Down/Bottom Up Shades

One of the top reasons people shop for top down/bottom up shades is for privacy. Most people don’t want the inside of their home exposed to complete strangers, especially from ground level floors when it is easy to see inside. Window shades are often purchased to help remedy this. This brings up the dilemma of totally blocking out the light during the course of the day. With top down shades, you no longer have to pick between privacy and natural sunlight in your home.

Top down/bottom up blinds are shades that not only slide up from the bottom but also slide down from the top, hence the name. This allows you to block the view from outside on the bottom, and let in as much light as you want from the top. This is great news for those who have been previously frustrated at being forced to choose between having a dark room at high noon or a fully exposed room that one can peer into from a block away.

Available in a variety of colors, styles, functions, and fabrics, opacities, top down/bottom up shades are quickly becoming an ideal choice for every window in the house. Top down shades are available as cellular shades, roman blinds and even woven wood shades. These options allow you to combine your choice of color, style and texture with the versatility of a top down/bottom up system. Cellular top down/bottom up shades let you balance between letting in the sunlight during the day on the top while still getting some insulation around the window at the bottom.

Top down and bottom up shades are an inventive window treatment that basks in the glory of its flexibility. Windows can often open from the top which can help circulate fresh air throughout your home. A top down blind system can let you choose to open the top window a bit to let the hot air out and open the bottom a bit to let the cooler air in. It also reduces the risk of your blinds getting damaged from getting blown around if a light breeze picks up. There are dozens of arrangements available to meet your needs. Top down/bottom up shades are a jack-of-all-trades, or shall we say, a “jack-of-all-shades”?

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Top 3 Reasons to Choose Blackout Shades

You may have heard about blackout shades and the advantages they offer. If you are not familiar with blackout blinds and are still on the fence about whether they are worth investing in, read on to learn the top three reasons to choose blackout shades.

#1 Light
The #1 reason people choose blackout blinds is because they effectively block light from entering the room. If your bedroom is illuminated by any light source from outside your home at night, you can use blackout shades to keep the light out and the room dark. If you enjoy an occasional morning of sleeping in, blackout shades are the answer. If you work the night shift, room darkening shades can be essential in helping you sleep better during the daytime. An added bonus – blackout shades provide total privacy, which is important for both bedrooms and bathrooms.

#2 Noise
Blackout shades are known for their light-stopping ability, but you may not be aware of their noise reduction properties. Because of their insulating characteristics, blackout shades can greatly cut down on noise coming from outside of your home. This combination of noise cancellation and light blocking makes room darkening shades the perfect solution for people who live in cities, near busy roads or next to a loud neighbor.

#3 Insulation
The honeycomb design of cellular blackout shades helps to keep out the cold better than nearly any other window covering. The blackout component keeps your home cool in the summer by reducing heat gain. The shades are also backed in white fabric so they reflect the sun and heat. Energy efficient blackout cellular shades translate into year-round savings on both heating and cooling costs.

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4 Ways to Choose Eco-Friendly Blinds

Comfortex WoodWinds

An important, but often overlooked, factor in determing which blind or shade to put in your home is the environmental impact in its manufacturing and the affects on indoor air quality in your home. 

Energy efficient blinds and shades also helps the environment. By effectively channeling the natural power of the sun, window coverings insulate during the winter, block solar heat gain in the summer and reduce UV damage inside the home.  

We’ve put togther a list of 4 important attributes to look for when purchasing your window treatment:  GREENGUARD certification, sustantiable manufacturing, Oeko-Tex® certification, and energy efficient design.  

 1) GREENGUARD Certification: The GREENGUARD Environmental Institute (GEI), an industry independent, non-profit organization, grants GREENGUARD Certification. GEI puts products through a series of tests to determine if they meet acceptable standards for indoor air quality. Those that pass are awarded GREENGUARD Indoor Air Quality Certification. Products that receive the GreenGuard tag are continually tested to ensure they maintain the approved standards. 

2) Sustainable Manufacturing  Products manufactured at facilities employing aggressive programs to reduce energy consumption and overall carbon footprint, and products made from sustainable materials such as renewable resources like bamboo, sisal, grass, jute and wood harvested through “sustainable yield forest management”. 

 3) Oeko-Tex®: The Oeko-Tex® Standard 100 is a globally uniform testing and certification system for textile raw materials, intermediate and end products at all stages of production. The Oeko-Tex® Standard 100: “Confidence in Textiles” label verifies that the fabrics are free of PVC, Halogen, Lead, Formaldehyde, allergenic dyes, pesticides, phenols, and heavy metals, among others. 

4) Energy Efficient Design:  Energy efficient window treatments translate into year-round savings on both heating and cooling costs. Inefficient windows can add 10-25% to heating bills and as much as 75% to summer air conditioning bills; and every kilowatt-hour of electricity you don’t use saves over two pounds of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere. Window treatments also protect your home from damaging UV rays.  Products such as cellular shades, wood blinds, and lined roman shades offer some of the best year-around energy efficiency.

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