Input on Roller Shade Manufacturers

[gemini5362]

Originally Posted by bcbounders

gemini,

Thanks for the update. I'm not in any rush, so I'll gladly wait the time it takes for your HDs to arrive and be installed. I'm curious to see how it all works out for you. Sounds like an interesting option.

Question for you (I've looked, but can't find an answer): do you know if it's possible to have a day/night option with the Hunter Douglas cellular shades? I like the option of being able to have filtered light (with privacy) OR complete darkness... and from what I can see of the HD cellular shades, it's one or the other, not both.

I also like the idea of the HD "LiteRise" option... just pull the blind up/down to where you want it and it stays put. Really simple mechanism... and a lot easier to install. Plus no motors to worry about replacing in the future.

Thanks!

I do not know the answer to your question. I know they have the day night blinds but i do not know about the honeycomb. My wife and I looked at how many times we have used the day shades in the last 3 years and you could count the number of times on one hand. Then we discussed the option of the top down to allow us to get light in the coach and still have the majority of the window blocked. Again we decided that we did not need that. We either put the blinds all the way up and have light and can see out or all the way down and block all viewing and light. With the simplicity of the motorized it will be even more so. hit one button that says all and they all go down or up. If in bright sunlight you can control them individually but i will be suprised if we even do that.
There are a ton of hunter douglas dealers around call one of them and ask them. They even came out to our coach free of charge and measured the sizes for us.

I just called yesterday to verify something in the invoice and the honeycomb blinds were shipped yesterday. We had to order a metal blind to go over the sink in the kitchen. They are still buidling it but the 5 motorized blinds have shipped. Makes me think they sell more honeycomb than metal blinds

[bcbounders]

Originally Posted by gemini5362

I do not know the answer to your question. I know they have the day night blinds but i do not know about the honeycomb.

Thanks... I'll check out my nearest HD dealer to find out... just figured you might have uncovered that in your research.

Good luck with your install... look forward to hearing about it!

[gemini5362]

New Hunter Douglas Honeycomb shades installed.

I have the new shades and have them installed. Took me about a day to take down 5 blinds and install 5 new hunter douglas day night shades. I learned a lot and anyone that is interested in going this route email me I learned several things that will help. The Hunter Douglas dealer I went with did not really understand the difference with the Motro Home even though she came out and looked at it. She did a good job getting them ordered but some of what I have learned will make it easier. They told me that the blinds ran off of 12 volts ( 8 A or C cells) Actually it is 10 batteries. Originally I was going to run them off of the Motor Home but decided to get the battery packs because they would be easier to wire in. It was a good thing I did that. The mounting brackets come with a couple of spacers to move them out from the wall. I used the 1/2 inch one and it put the blind right outside of the window frame perfectly. We did away with the old valences and just installed the blinds without any other covering. I think it looks good and they are tight enough against the window that you can not see in. I actually think even with the sides being open and a little bit of light coming through it is darker than the old day night shades with the holes around the string. The difference in quality between them and the lexor or even the old day night shades is amazing. Like I said earlier we almost never used the day shades so we do not think we will miss having them.

Someone made a comment about having a remote control in an 8.5 foot wide coach. Now that I have them I cannot believe that I did without them. We still have the manual shades that we put in the bedroom as a trial to see how we liked the honeycomb shades. I went to close one today and I actually had to pull it closed by hand. How archaic can you get.

The new shades can be closed or opened individually or it has a button for all. They also have a favorite position you can set if you only like to have them halfway open you can hit favorite and it will go to that position. The favorite position is user settable.









The one with the carpeted valance is the old day night shade

The two brackets are the new Hunter Douglas Brackets

[kustom]

watching this

[gemini5362]

Originally Posted by kustom

watching this

kustom that is pretty much it unless someone has questions.

We wanted the honeycomb shades they seem to have an R value of about 3
I wanted power shades so that I can just push a button and have them go up and down. The Hunter douglas honeycomb shades seem to have a better warranty than the other things I looked at. We bought Lovor Honeycomb shades in the bedroom because we wanted to see if we would like them and they were cheap. They are not bad they are manual and I wanted power but they off the shelf ( they cut the width to size ) are not bad. They only have about three or 4 colors though. The lovor ( I called them lexor in my other post. You can buy them at lowes) do not have the insulation value of the HD but they do keep the light out while you are trying to sleep.

Installation was pretty easy. The only hard windows were the ones that are at the end of the living room slide. It is a tight space and you need to actually mount the bracket to the wall. The rest of the shades and one bracket on the windows were mounted directly to the cabinets. That was very easy. Mounting the power wand with the batteries in it was very easy. I just drilled a hole in the cabinet to run the wire through and then mounted the wand to the facing above the door. That is out of the way does not take up any cabinet room and is easy to get to. HD claims that depending on the size of the shade and usage that you have the capability of getting 5 years out of a set of batteries. The shade comes with batteries with each wand.

The blinds set close enough to the window that people are not going to be able to see in. I had them send a set of magnetic hold down brackets. HD warned my salesperson there might be a problem with the Magnetic Brackets puting a bit of strain on the shade when you raise it. It raises fine against it but you can tell when the magnets let loose of the shade. I believe what we are going to do is mount the brackets on industrial strength velcro. When we are stationary for any period of time we will put the brackets up and then only use them when we are moving to keep the shades in place. I do not doubt they will be able to do that well. I am not sure that we could not leave them in place and be ok but it is not that big a deal to take them off if you velcro them in place.

The only other issue is how to cover the holes the mounting brackets for the old valences left. I am not sure how we are going to do that but I suspet it is going to be something along the lines of decorative covers. When the blinds are down you cannot see them but up they need to be coverred.

[MtnTrek]

Looks very nice!
Thanks for all your reports and adjoining pics. This has been a sore topic for us also as We have too many broken D/N shades with broken strings tec. and have not decided what we’re going to do. Let alone which shades we’ll be ordering on our new coach.
Thanks !

[ChasA]

We're very happy with MCD manual shades.

[gemini5362]

We did not go with the MCD shades for several reasons.
1. Limited colors
2. No insulation value.
3. Roller shade. It is a personal preference thing for me I just do not like them.

MtnTrek if you are ordering a new coach I do not know what they will do if you want something like the Hunter douglas shades. It would be worth trying though.

If anyone wants to go to these type of shades msg me. There are some hints that I would offer. One thing is the dealer did not tell me they had manual switches on each shade. The shades over the small windows in the slide out at each end, those shades fit into a pretty small area. One of the shades you can reach the switch on the end pretty easily. On the other one it is turned around so the switch is back behind the cabinets in aa tight spot and hard to get at. We are sending it back to the factory to have the switch moved to the other end of the shade to get it out where it can be reached easier. One of the big deals with the switches you need them to program the remote.


I can say one thing beyond any shadow of a doubt. I wished I had put these shades in when i bought my coach. It is so much easier to use the shades now. We open all of the shades when we get up then close them down in the heat of the afternoon. Then we open them up until it gets dark. That is a lot of opening and closing with manual shades. With these it is very easy and we spend more time looking out. We are in the Park we are staying out now I cannot wait until we go back to our favorite state park and get to enjoy the scenery more easily.

We like them so much we are going to be ordering new shades for our brick and stick house.

[JohnBoyToo]

So, you took down all your valances where you put these shades ?

Not sure the wife would give up the valances as she already has a cow about the front driver and pass window shades letting "people see in at night"

[gemini5362]

Originally Posted by JohnBoyToo

So, you took down all your valances where you put these shades ?

Not sure the wife would give up the valances as she already has a cow about the front driver and pass window shades letting "people see in at night"

Good question glad you asked that. First of all it was the wifes idea to take down the valences she felt like they were outdated and she wanted a cleaner look. There was also a problem with the Powered shades. The are thicker and would not fit in the headrail of the valences. We could have shimmed that out though I believe. She also was worried about the same thing people being able to see in. As I said in an earlier post we went to lowes and bought some off the shelf shades that were inexepensive to see how we liked them. One of the first things we checked when we put the Lowes shades up in the bedroom was whether or not you can see in the camper. The answer is no you cannot. We have the shades extending out past the windows the same distance the valances did ( about 2 inches past the side of the window) When you look in the coach at night with the interior lights on you only see the shade absolutely nothing else. You can tell your wife that will not be a problem. I mounted the shades very close to the window. In reality the shades came with two spacers that you can use to move the shade out from the window a 1/2 inch spacer and a 1/8 inch spacer these can be added together if necessary. The 1/2 inch spacer just matched the thickness of the frame inside the coach. By mounting the bracket with the 1/2 inch spacer next to the wall the shade just clears the window. The attached picture shows the end view of the shade. You notice you cannot see anything out of the window. If you look at the bracket you will see the white spacer behind it. That also makes it easy to make sure the brackets are the exact same distance from the wall. The Hunter douglas has a shade within a shade. The inner shade that you see there is mylar. I think it helps with refelcting the suns rays back out of the coach. The white inside you see for the top two honeycombs is just the flas from my camera.

The only problem we have left is how to fix the holes that the brackets for the original day night shade made. There are a couple of options. One is to get some filler and mix it with some coloring to get them the same color as the wallpaper. The other is to buy some kind of decoration to mount over them. I had originally planned to put cupholders in those spots but the shades cover them when down so a cupholder might not work. I really have not gotten around to exploring my options on that problem that well yet.

I will say this repeatedly the only regret I have for purchasing these shades is that I waited so long to do it. I should have bought them when I first bought the coach. However, we spent a long time deciding what we wanted their are limited selections available we thought. We saw the Hunter Douglas at a home show in the civic center and talked to the people in the show about using them on the RV. Bali makes the same shade and so does levelor, you can get both in the motorized version if you get custom shades. We had samples sent of the material and color from Bali and Levelor, we borrowed a sample book from the local Hunter Douglas dealer. The first thing we noticed was the better quality of the Hunter Douglas material. It was an expensive purchase for any of the companies I mention and we just felt the higher price for the Hunter Douglas was worth the difference in quality.

[JohnBoyToo]

Thanks for the clarification....
we actually have a shade like that in our master bath...
even though we opted for opaque glass in the 4x4 window,
the wife had to have a shade :0
and it still looks great after 10+ years.

[Ludmilla]

I really like the honeycomb shades but I do not want motorized ones. A question I have is how to stop the bottom of he shades from swinging around while you are running down the road? I was thinking you could use a Velcro strip to keep them from moving while on the road. Have you tried anything like this?

[gemini5362]

Originally Posted by Ludmilla

I really like the honeycomb shades but I do not want motorized ones. A question I have is how to stop the bottom of he shades from swinging around while you are running down the road? I was thinking you could use a Velcro strip to keep them from moving while on the road. Have you tried anything like this?

Let me answer both of your questions. The first one is they sell a magnetic hold down bracket. It uses rare earth metals and holds the shade pretty well. It holds it well enough that Hunter Douglas actually told my dealer they were a bit worried about the holders holding too tight when I started to raise the shades with the motor and putting too much drag on the motor. When i tried it I was a bit apprehensive also. You actually see the motor pulling on the shade then the shade seems to pop free. I am going to do it this way. I put the brackets on a piece of velcro. I then put the corresponding vercro with self stick tape on the window frame. When I get ready to travel I will mount the brackets and let them hold the shade in place. The other option is just to raise them to the top. The motor pulls them in very tight and holds them there is not any way for them to move while traveling if you do that.


The motorized option was a source of disagreement between my wife and I Hunter Douglas has a unit that you pull the cord repeatedly and it opens the shade. It is like a ratchet. Instead of having to pull a long cord until you have the shade all the way open you just pull on it in short tugs and it opens it up. I was pretty adamant about wanting the motorized shades and even saved the money from my Hobby Job to pay for them. Once we had the motorized shades my wife admitted I was right . I would never have anything but the motorized shades in any coach I might ever have.

[JohnBoyToo]

Like all rv shades, I usually raise them up when moving as their pleats/springs/etc... have much less stress when stored...

Have to have shades when moving ?
Get some reflectix and cut to fit.