Roman Blinds

By Viewscape

What is a Roman Blind

A Roman blind is a fabric blind, divided in equal horizontal segments. The blind pulls up in soft rectangular folds, producing a horizontal pleated effect with a smooth covering over the window when down. Roman Blinds bring style and elegance to the most formal and informal of rooms and are suitable for both domestic and commercial applications.

Major component description: Headboard (head rail), cloth (skin), battens, cords, pulleys, rings, bottom pocket (bottom rail) and brackets.

How does it operate?

All Roman Blinds are cord or tape drawn. The cords are threaded through rings (attached to the back battens) and terminate at the lowest batten. To operate the blind, the cords are lifted or lowered. By lifting the cords, the lowest batten will rise until it stacks up against the batten with rings, which in turn will stack up against the following batten with rings and so on, until all are stacked up on top. Lowering the cords will reverse the process.

• Cord and Pulley- The most basic control type. Cords run through pulleys that are in-line with the cord rings. Cords are secured onto a cleat to hold stack in place.
  


• Cord and Pulley with Cord Lock - Cords are held in-place with the cord lock and excess cord are secured onto a cleat. The cord lock works the same as that in a Venetian blind.
  


• Cord and Pulley with Heavy Duty Cord Lock - The Heavy Duty Cord Lock engages when the cords are gently released (pulling the blind up and then gently lowered down). To unlock, the cords are gently pulled and the blinds are lowered in a slow and consistent rate. There is an additional End Pulley that allows all cords to run down at the edge of the blind.


• Chain Control - Cords are individually spooled into drum supports. A square shaft runs through all the drum supports and is driven at the control end by a chain winder. The whole assembly sits in an aluminium track.

Most common usage

Most Roman blinds are fitted over the architrave as a face fixed blind. The width of the blind is normally slightly over the width of the architrave, thereby covering the whole window when the blind is fully down. This coverage allows effective ‘block-out’ over a window, with a slight ‘glow‘ around the edges.

Terminology/Frequent Issues

Terminologies relating to Viewscape Roman Blind

• Recessed Fit – also known as (aka) Top Fix, Tight Measure, Inside Measure and Reveal. This indicates that the blind is positioned inside the window frame (architrave), and the measurements taken are within the window cavity.
• Face Fit – aka Outside Measure, Arc Measure and Front Measure, This indicates that the blind is positioned over the architrave, and the measurements taken are equal or larger than the distance between the outside edges of the architrave.
• Blind Size – Actual: this means that we will make the blind to the dimensions given.
  NAM: No Allowance Made – If the blind is to be Recessed Fit, our Sales Order Entry (SOE) staff will take 3 mm off the width only. If the given NAM is for a Face Fit Blind, no deductions will be made.
• Butt and Through Blinds – This applies to the situation where two blinds comes together at a corner, and where one of the blinds is cut smaller (Butt Blind) to allow the other blind (Through Blind) to take the full width.
  
  Example of Butt and Through Blinds:
  
  Note: Just because two blinds meet at a corner does NOT automatically mean that they are Butt and Through Blinds.
  
  Example of NON- Butt and Through Blinds – The bottom 2 diagrams show two separate blinds (Not Butting Blinds), therefore should NOT be ordered as butting.
  
  Deductions for Butt blind – when customer orders blinds with NAM
  
  The ‘Through’ blind is the one that covers the whole window. The ‘Butt’ blind is the blind that has to be cut back to allow space for the ‘Through’ blind. The allowance for the cut back of the butt blind in a recessed fit is as follows:
  
  • Less 30 mm (20 mm headboard);
  • Less 50 mm (42 mm headboard);
  • Less 80 mm (70 mm headboard);
  • Less 100 mm (90 mm headboard);
  • Less 120 mm (110 mm headboard);
  
  
• Bay windows – Measurements for normal 3-Bay windows (135° - 135°)
  
  Recessed fit – Measure the width and drop of the recess windows at the front of the recess - NEVER at the back near the glass. The blind size = NAM (recess measurement) less 10 mm. The blinds will be fitted flush to the front edge of recess.
  Face Fit – Measure the full length of the top architrave: the 3 sections. The deductions are as follows:
  

  Headboard Size	The 2 side blinds	The centre blind
  20 mm	less 16mm	less 32mm
  42 mm (standard)	less 25mm	less 50mm
  70 mm	less 35mm	less 74mm
  90 mm	less 42mm	less 90mm
  110 mm	less 51mm	less 106mm

Various components

Cord Lock Pulley	Swivel Cord Lock	Heavy Duty Cord Lock
Chain Control Track & Planetary Gear Control	Drum and Drum Holder	Brackets
Ring	Lift Cord Bell Weight	Swivel Pulley

Cupping

Cupping is when the side edges of the blind curls towards or away from the window. For Roman blinds, cupping is rare as it requires the fabric to shrinks width wise. This causes the fibre glass rods to bend to compensate for the fabric shrinkage.

Freying

Freying is caused by excessive wear on the edge of the fabric. The most common occurrence is when the cord is pulled across the edge of the fabric, abrading the edge or rubbing on door handles, window winders etc.

Pin holes

Pin holes can be seen in a Block out Classic Roman Blind. The battens are sewn pockets with fibreglass rods inserted. As the pockets are sewn, there WILL be pin holes where the pockets are sewn. If this is an issue, then the customer can choose Regent or Vogue finish rather than Classic. Vogue and Regent has no sewn pockets, as they use a small aluminium batten at the back of the blind.

Romans and Recess Fit

Avoid fitting a Roman blind in a recess due to the following reasons:

If the blind is a block out, the area around the blind can emit a bright glow that will reduce the light block out effect to the room.

• Operating the blind is more difficult. You have to reach around the blind to grab the cord; a tendency to frey the edge of the blind.
• The drop of the roman blind will vary depending on the length of time the blind is in the up or down position. In the recess, the blind may be seen to have too long or too short a drop.
• The stack of Romans in the UP position will block the top part of the window (avg stack 350 mm).

My blind does not work

Most common occurrences:

• Blinds with cord lock. The blinds are stuck onto and cannot release down. All cord locks work by having a small amount of cord that can be pulled to ‘release’ the mechanism. If the cords have been pulled so tight as to have no more ‘pull’ available, then one solution to release the tension is to cut the cord at the very bottom of the blind (please ensure that someone holds the blind before cutting the cord). This will free up the cord lock and the cords can then be pulled through the rings and re-tied back on evenly to ensure the blinds get pulled up level.
• Blinds are not level. These blinds have “Bell weights” at the end of the cord (the cords are tied to the bottom batten of the blind for standard pulley and cord lock types). The purpose of the bell weights is to provide a small tension to the cord to ensure that they are wound up in a precise manner. If the bell weights are looped or tied up, then the blind will not stay level when they are being drawn up.

Component Breakages

Interestingly, there have been very few component failures. The common parts requested includes: Brackets, Romatech Batten Rings, Break Apart Tassels, Cleats and Bell Weights.

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