Solar screen shades or Ann Arbor solar shades, install inside of your home to block the hot UV rays of the sun from entering your home. This keeps it much cooler in the summer months, so you use less energy to cool your spaces. Solar shades are among the best custom window treatments that promote energy efficiency in your home. You also have many options from which to choose.
How Solar Shades Perform For You
The first instance of solar shades was created many years ago for use in museums. They needed sheer and transparent shades to block UV rays from entering inside. This protects the sun glare, and the UV rays from fading or harming the very expensive relics that are found in a museum.
If this is a good option for a museum, then you can rest assured that it’s a great option for your home to protect all of your inside textiles, including flooring, furniture, and paintings. Solar shades allow your indoor furnishings to last much longer by cutting down on the number of UV rays in your spaces, and they keep you much cooler inside in the summer months.
Solar Shades Features
Solar shades protect your privacy, allow you to see outside of them, and cut down on the sun’s UV rays, glare and heat in your home. They are easy to operate, clean, and maintain. There are many different colors and opacities to choose from for the perfect combination of sun protection and visibility outside.
Solar shades are a type of roller shade as an Ann Arbor window treatment. When down, they appear as a flat sheet of mesh-like fabric, and when you raise them, they roll up onto a cassette at the top of the window out of sight.
Opacity Levels of Solar Shades
Solar shades are made of woven mesh-like material. They come in different levels of opacity from 1% to 14%. A 1% shade will block 99% of the sunlight, heat, and glare from entering your home while allowing 1% to stream in your windows. This is referred to as openness or how tight the weave is. The lower the percentage number is, the tighter the weave is, and the less light that will enter your home through the windows.
Solar Shades Colors
Many different colors are available in custom solar shades. Some of the most common ones are shades of black, white, gray, tan, beige, and off-white. Some brands of solar shades will include eco-friendly options in the fabric that is made from reclaimed plastic that washes ashore out of the ocean.
Lighter colors will reflect more of the sunlight to make them more efficient at blocking the sunlight and UV rays. Darker colors give you a better view outside of your windows.
You can choose the color and opacity that will best serve your needs.
What Options Are Available for Solar Shades?
You can choose to have a custom valance at the top of the window to cover the roller cassette when the fabric rolls up on it when you raise your shades. There are many different styles available to add beauty and color to your windows.
You can choose if the control side of the shade is on the left or right. At times there, won’t be enough room for a beaded chain or cord to operate them on one side of a window, so it can be operated from the other side of the window where there is more room.
The standard roller type has the fabric rolling up at the rear of the cassette when your open your solar shades. You can instead choose to have a reverse roller option where the fabric rolls up onto the front of the cassette.
You can also choose from a variety of lifting options a beaded circular chain, a cordless option, or a motorized option that allows you to control your solar shades with a simple touch of a button on a remoter control, an app on any Smart device or by voice command when using your Smart home assistant.
Conclusion
At Creative Windows, our highly knowledgeable staff will be happy to help you decide what options you want and need for your new solar shades. We carry many different options and offer a FREE in-home consultation for us to let you see and feel the fabrics, so you know exactly what to expect. Call us today for your window treatment products in Ann Arbor!
