Blinds: The Window Treatment That Will Save You Money
Blinds, draperies, shades, and shutters are window treatment options praised worldwide by both homeowners and interior designers.
Blinds, in particular, are loved for more than just their looks. Their high versatility, in terms of styles and materials, and their functionality are some of the reasons people so commonly use them.
Window blinds provide you with better light and privacy control. They protect your home from harmful UV rays while still optimizing your view and natural light intake. But even beyond those factors, blinds have a unique feature bound to make you happy: they can save you money.
How can Blinds save you money?
Window blinds are energy efficient. This efficiency means that they use relatively less energy to provide the same level of energy. In other words, they maximize energy levels by reducing heat loss and gain, depending on the overall temperature of a room. But to better understand this concept, let’s consider how blinds work during the winter and summer seasons.
During Summer
Window blinds, no matter their type, all offer some protection against overall heat, primarily caused by sunlight. But certain blinds specifically, such as solar blinds, perform better at this task.
When using blinds during hot seasons, their heat reduction feature allows you to reduce the need for devices like air conditioners. It is, in fact, through this need reduction, that they then lower your cost of running them. For many users even, simply closing their blinds in the afternoon (when it’s hot) and opening them back again in the evening is all that’s needed to keep a room at appropriate temperature levels.
So, in reality, what saves you money isn’t the direct use of blinds, but the fact that they reduce your need for cooling devices that often lead to additional maintenance, usage, and repair costs.
During Winter
According to the Department of Energy, during cold seasons, “about 76% of the sunlight that falls on standard double-pane windows enters to become heat.” But then “about 30% of a home’s heating energy is lost through windows.”
This means that while sunlight helps provide heat and warmth during cold weather, a significant amount is lost through windows. Therefore, having the right window treatments and coverings is the primary way to conserve as much heat as possible.
During winter, keeping blinds closed at night and opened during warmer mornings will reduce heat loss and help maintain a better temperature. And when using heating devices, closing the blinds will minimize the amount of heat that is lost through windows and therefore optimize your overall temperature level.
Wood blinds, in particular, have proven to be some of the best blind types for this. Due to the presence of air pockets in its cellular structure, wood is a natural insulator. Therefore, it is more effective at heating and cooling down a room, leading to reduced energy bills.
Automated and motorized blinds
As mentioned earlier, the best way to optimize your use of blinds and to save your money is by operating them at specific times.
But this can quickly become an annoying and tiresome job. So to make things easier, you can invest in automated or motorized blinds. With these custom made blinds, you will no longer need to open and close your blinds manually. Instead, all it takes is a few minutes to program them to open and close at specific times according to a defined schedule.
Think of it as the best of both worlds: save money and save time.
Summary
With so many things already chipping away at your budget, having cost-effective window coverings is a great way to find some savings. With their energy-efficiency that allows for both winter and summer heat and temperature optimization, blinds are truly what you’ve been searching for all this time. And to make things even better, when searching for your blinds in Denver, simply request a motorized option during your blinds installation in Denver, CO.
