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Comment by torcete | Hacker News Reader

That system is very common in Spain. I didn't know it was German.

I had to fix several of them, sometimes with more success than others. Yes, I would be nice to also have a guide por the Rolladen system.

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They're hella illegal in America because of weird fire code rules - so you rarely see any support for them on US oriented websites.

Assuming I’ve searched the right thing (are they external blinds?), what would make this particularly bad in a fire?

Perhaps difficulty escaping from interior.

In Canada at least it's because fire-fighters aren't trained to bypass them and, as you said, concerns about people within being unable to escape.

FWIW in Germany there's a requirement for buildings with automatic shutters to have one designated emergency exit window where the shutters can be operated manually. But fire-fighters shouldn't really have much of a problem if they carry an axe.

I would imagine that’s due to egress rules?

But searching (and assuming I found the right thing) it looks like they’re made and installed in some places in the USA.

Example: https://rolladenlv.com/

I would love to see German Rolladen here in the US. Thank you!

Oh, no! Another thing prohibited by weird fire codes despite more lax rules in Europe resulting in fewer casualties. We can't even have nice apartments because of fire code: https://www.niskanencenter.org/how-to-build-more-family-size...

I didn't know the name either. Yeah, I'm spoiled by them in Spain (at least in my region, pretty much every residential house or building has them) and I typically sleep too little when I'm elsewhere due to lack of them. No other alternative I have seen comes even close when it comes to making a room really dark at night.

I just call someone to fix them, though. It's quite a dark art for those of us who suck at DIY.

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