Comment by nsajko | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nsajko | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

A very nice for profit site. Their business model seems to be selling parts for repairing window blinds, but the site is a treasure trove of information on the topic of window blinds, and the design of the site, organization and presentation of information regarding this specialized topic are beautiful. Just wanted to share it, no affiliation.

NB: despite the richness of information, the site fails to help me because it's missing info on the specific type of blinds I was interested in ;)

EDIT: relevant Wikipedia pages:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_blind

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roller_shutter

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_shutter

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_shutter_hardware

Window shutters are often used as/instead of window blinds in Europe. The linked site sadly doesn't seem to cover shutters yet, presumably because they're not popular in the USA currently. EDIT: possible explanation by another commenter - "They're hella illegal in America because of weird fire code rules": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38845794

Shutters are complicated, as they are really are several different things.

For example, interior venetian shutters are closely related to blinds, but are not especially common in the US. Blinds with slats (venetian blinds) can perform a similar function, but can be raised to prevent any blocking of view, while interior venetian style shutters usually swing open and require additional wall-space. such shutters might win on maximum amount of light blocking (even vs wooden slat blinds) but that will vary by shutter design. Cost is certainly a major factor of them being uncommon (but far from unheard of, we even have multiple different names for them) in much of the US.

Roller shutters could be considered an exterior equivalent to roller blinds (or roller shades), although roller shutters are often designed with proper blackout capability, which most blinds and shades lack. I presume cost is one of the major reasons these are rare in the US.

The main reason for using external blinds is heat - in Spain in the summer you want the sun to be hitting a blind outside of your window, not inside it. If you only have an inside blind then it still heats up and warms up the room.

Are you talking about shutters on the exterior or the interior? I have plantation shutters in my house, as do several of my middle-America neighbors. Exterior shutters in these parts are almost always decorative.

I like the look, ease of tilting the louvers up and down and, most importantly, they are dead simple to clean. But they were not cheap and not easy to install. I could have had high quality fabric shades for half the cost and spent one-third the time on installation.

Edit: Maybe its particular to what I installed (Veneta) but good luck fix a single louver if one breaks. The frame which contains them is either glued or very tightly press-fit. I'm not saying it would be impossible but you'd need to be careful and probably need to build some sort of jig for re-assembly.

Plantation shutters are very common on older houses in the South. They’re also pretty common on higher end newer houses. I love them and had them installed when we moved into our current house a couple years ago.

> good luck fix a single louver if one breaks.

I am facing exactly this repair now. My method is to modify one side of the vane so that a pin can be press fit/glued into the vane from the side and covered with a glued plug. This can be done in-place when needed. It's not completely invisible but putty and a little brushwork make it almost so.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com