The choice of materials and fabrics strongly impact the success of your skylight shading project. When it comes to tensioned blind systems for skylights or sloping glazed roofs, the fabric should be meticulously selected. The Solange skylight shades use customized hardware and architectural fabrics to produce daylight in large spaces and therefore reduce energy costs.
These specialty blinds ensure outstanding performance for all skylights. They can be operated with motorized systems and paired with special tension systems. This will provide maximum natural light while reducing the glare and heat gain.
All Solange® specialty shades are designed to accommodate large glazing as well as variety of shapes and directions including sloped, inclined or horizontally installed skylights. They come with many configurations; such us top-fix and face-fix to create an elegant yet effective shading solution for hard-to-reach areas.
The automated tensioned fabric shades precisely regulate heat gain and glare whatever the angle of the glazing. They are engineered with a spring mechanism that enables the fabric to be tightly held. The tension spring system can be used for shades that close from top to bottom, or from the bottom up.
The mechanism constantly holds fabric flat and intelligently adapts to the glazing surroundings. Whatever the shape or size of the glazing, these architectural blinds can be applied with accuracy and discretion and come in a wide range of fabrics to suit any building requirements.
Explore in this article the most energy-efficient fabrics that are specifically engineered to cover skylights.
Opaque Fabrics
Dim out or opaque fabrics with a PVC/Polyester composition ensure energy efficiency and thermal performance. These are durable and lightweight fabrics that can be used in both internal and external applications. Engineered opaque fabrics feature high-tenacity polyester micro yarn base cloth that ensures superior tear resistance. Their superior aesthetic is completed with an exceptional flatness, smooth finish as well as mechanical strength and dimensional stability. Furthermore, opaque fabrics ensure UV protection and maximum privacy. Perfect for home theatres and media rooms, these fabrics also act as thermal insulators.
Poly-screen Fabrics
The Poly-screen fabrics are suitable for both interior and exterior applications. There is a wide range of screen fabrics with polymer composition that are enhanced with a composite construction to ensure minimal stretch under tension, which extends the life cycle of the fabric. Poly screen fabrics come in a variety of colours and openness factors. For better results, choose a fabric that combines the openness factor, shading coefficient, visible light transmission, solar transmittance, solar reflection, and solar absorbance to meet your project requirements.
Reflective Screens
When solar transmittance percentage in a fabric is low, the fabric will significantly reduce the amount of solar energy coming to the building through the glass. Light-coloured fabrics usually reduce heat while darker ones reduce light. Grey-coloured blinds are widely applied in offices or shopping malls. Addressing glare and heat issues is easy task when screen reflective fabrics are used, irrespective of their color. A highly reflective screen fabric with aluminium metallized backing ensures a high solar reflectance. The backing creates a virtually solid coating on the yarns of the fabric to significantly reduce light diffused through the yarn and ensure a low Ts% value.
Screen Fabrics
Light-coloured screen fabrics with openness factors of more than 3% will allow greater amounts of visible light through the fabric especially in spacious areas like restaurants and atriums where visible light is required to reduce electricity costs. You should consider the light visibility transmittance whenever your project requires glare protection with a Tv% of 6% as the maximum level of visible light transmission depending on the openness factor. At the same time, these fabrics provide thermal comfort, tear resistance and durability, which makes them perfect for skylight shades.
There is so much more than aesthetics and colours to consider when choosing architectural fabrics for specialty blinds. The right fabric will reduce heat gain and maximize glare protection and daylighting, allowing for energy savings and excellent outward visibility even when shades are closed. When accurately selected, these shading fabrics can improve wellness and productivity of occupants, whilst making the building more sustainable.