Light Management Solutions

Light management in a country like Australia is often a tricky thing. Light management of the Australian sun can be the difference between dazzling glare and heat and freezing southerlies and gloom, so you need some options which will cover all seasons and situations. Roller blinds are one popular approach to the problem, along with special awnings, roman blinds and sun screens.

The issues in light management

The biggest problem is getting enough natural light while being able to deal with times of peak focus in a specific area. Home designs tend to focus more on the design options than the natural lighting of a location, and the modern trend to large amounts of glass and window space can be a mixed blessing.

If you live in an east-west facing house, you’ll be well aware of the problems. The morning sun in summer can be hot, but the afternoon sun is ferocious. Keeping this extremely hot sunlight out is important, because it can do a lot of damage to materials, even computers and LCD screens, and play havoc with your air conditioning settings.

North- south facing houses have less of a problem, but exposed locations and even building materials can be problems, particularly in summer. The notorious hot bricks which can raise the temperature of a house by several degrees are a case in point, particularly if your home is brick veneer.

In winter, the problems can be reversed. Lack of natural light in some parts of the home can cause mold, mildew and even allergy problems. Temperature effects on the southerly facing part of the house can be another problem, because glass tends to transfer cold as well as heat.

Light management solutions

The simplest approach to the heat is screening. Tough, weatherproof screens designed to be resistant to the Australian summer sun are worth their weight in gold to homes under siege from glare and heat.

Retractable awnings, retractable sun roofs, blinds and other appropriate types of light management are definitely the easy way around the issues. A suite of different types of internal and external adjustable blinds is usually the best and most efficient way to get around the issues.

It’s best to get a quote and some onsite professional advice to ensure you’re getting what you need. Everyone’s home is different, and every location has its own particular lighting situations that need to be managed.

A customized approach also ensures that you can get your blinds and awnings on a good design basis, with appropriate color schemes and design matches to add proper aesthetic values.

Shopping for blinds, awnings and sunroofs

There are a lot of cheap blinds on the market. The problem is that these blinds usually can’t do the job very well, if at all. They’re cheap because they’re made of inferior materials, and these materials have a bad habit of dissolving in the Australian sun, normally pretty quickly.

It’s best to check out the upper range of the market first. These are the real designer blinds and awnings, and they’re also the tough materials that can do the job properly. Start with the good quality, and you’ll be able to make a good decision about your blinds.