Solar window blinds use science to help homeowners save money.  In warm areas of the country where electricity bills are high because of running the air conditioner all day long, homeowners try to block heat absorption through windows using blackout window treatments. The less heat coming through the windows, the less the AC needs to work.  Blackout window treatments block the heat and save money.

Unfortunately, blackout curtains and shades will darken the room as well.  What’s needed is something that blocks the UV rays that heat up a room, but allows light into the room for daily living.  Solar window blinds do this.  They conserve energy by blocking rays of the sun from passing through your window.  95% are blocked, in fact.  At the same time, solar window blinds will allow natural light to pass through the windows.  Who wants to live in a cave?

Solar window blinds use solar material to block UV rays and maintain interior comfort levels, all the while saving money on electricity bills.  They essentially filter the light, allowing into your home beautiful sunshine for a natural environment without the heating, harmful UV rays.

The eco friendly solar blinds pictured here are made of light-filtering material that block UV rays but allows you to see out the window.  They are eco friendly because they are made from fabric that is certified to meet indoor air quality standards.

The certification is called Greenguard, which sets standards for pollutants in window treatments that can be harmful to people breathing the air.  There are chemicals found in all sorts of household interiors which can give off gasses, adversely affecting residents of the home.  Eco friendly solar blinds are certified not to have more than a minimal amount of emissions of the following:

• styrene
• formaldehyde
• individual VOCs

These chemicals have found to be carcinogens and reproductive toxins if inhaled regularly.  Surprisingly, a large number of interior products like rugs, flooring, paints, and window treatments off gas these pollutants.  Eco friendly solar blinds do not.

Greenguard is an independent non-profit organization committed to indoor air quality standards in interior decorating products.  They have granted their certification to a range of eco friendly solar blinds, which you can find by looking for their Greenguard symbol next to product descriptions in solar blinds stores.

To grasp the concept of solar powered blinds, imagine your world in opposites.  Normally during the day your venetian blinds will act to block the sun and darken your room.  Now turn all that upside down, inside out and imagine solar powered blinds: your dark room is lit by illuminated venetian blinds.

The picture shows a dark room illuminated by solar powered blinds that were charged during the day with UV rays from the sun.  As you can see, a pleasing light source is given off from solar powered blinds, unlike any other type of light.

Each slat in the blinds is lined with a strip of UV panels that absorb the sun during the day.  At night, each strip becomes a light source.  These solar powered blinds are still in the prototype stage so until cost comes down they’re pretty much unavailable to the public.  But what a great idea!

Can solar blinds & shades prevent solar heat gain?  Anyone who owns a house in a warm climate know that window orientation and shading are extremely important to keeping the house cool and energy bills low.  A roof overhang prevents lots of sun from reaching windows that face south.

However,  it’s the other sides that are tricky.  In the afternoon, the westward-facing windows and in the morning the eastward-facing windows get lots of sun when the sun is low.  A roof overhang would have to be so wide you’d have to buy more property to fit it withing your own boundaries.  That’s where solar blinds & shades can help reduce solar heat gain.

Usually, professionals will tell homeowners that the best way to reduce solar heat gain is to prevent the sun’s rays from hitting the window in the first place.  That means relying solely on exterior window fixtures like awnings, exterior aluminum shades, porches, and shrubs.  These work, but if they’re not an option for you for whatever reason (can’t modify your exterior b/c you don’t own it, etc) then solar blinds & shades can do a nice job.

If you’re going that route, then look for solar blinds & shades with highly reflective panels facing the outside.  That way, any solar radiation that makes it through the window will be reflected back out.  The greater the reflectance the better job your solar blinds & shades will do at keeping your home cool.

Solar blinds are the venetian blind version of ever-popular solar shades. Both types of modern window treatments offer function as well as design.  Both work to block the sun while allowing for natural light to enter your room at the same time.

With solar blinds in the home, the amount of light coming in the room is controlled by rotating slats, manually controlled.  The light can also be directed upward or downward, with the upward direction giving off a very pleasant indirect lighting effect.

Compared to solar shades, the style of solar blinds will also be a more classical look, since venetian blinds have been around for more than a century.  Combined with a choice of wooden panel on the solar blinds, the look is very warm, rich and homey.  The plastic variety of solar blinds are almost always inferior as far as style is concerned.

There’s now a new form of solar blinds which have solar panels on each slat.  When the blinds are turned toward the sun during the day, the solar panels convert UV rays into energy.  This is a breakthrough new technology that offers green energy solutions for eco-conscious homeowners.