Offices and managed properties

We specify and install solar and roller shades for Northeast Ohio offices and managed properties: openness and fabric colour chosen against the elevation and the floor layout, a standardised header so one unit can be replaced years later, and motors on a schedule where a west facade needs the shade down before the sun arrives.

Three problems, in order

Glare on screens

The complaint is almost never “too much light” — it is a monitor you cannot read after two o'clock. A solar shade at a lower openness in a darker fabric cuts glare hard and keeps the view out crisp. A light fabric reflects more solar heat back out but scatters more light into the room, which is often the opposite of what a floor full of screens needs. Those two facts pull in different directions and the specification has to choose which problem it is solving. The same argument, at more length.

Afternoon heat on the west side

West and south-west glass takes low, direct afternoon sun arriving at a shallow angle, which is why a glass coating and a roof overhang both underperform on that elevation. Shading at the glass is the only thing in its path.

A facade that reads as one building

From the pavement, shades at twelve different heights are the most visible sign of a building nobody is managing — and it is the one thing a prospective tenant sees before they walk in. A specified fabric, a consistent header and an agreed half-drop fix it. The solar shades we use.

Solar shades, specified

Openness governs view and UV: the category publishes 1%, 3%, 5% and 10%, and the tighter the weave the more of both it stops. Colour governs glare and heat behaviour, and it works opposite to intuition as described above. The two are chosen together, against your actual glazing, orientation and floor plate, rather than off a chart.

Fascia is the repeatable commercial header: clean across a floor, consistent from the street, and simple enough that a single unit can be replaced without matching a discontinued headbox. The four headers compared.

Tenant improvements and turns

A property manager's real anxiety is not the install — it is the unit that fails in year four and cannot be matched. We answer that with a documented specification, a standard header, and a workroom that keeps the record of what went in and where. That is a genuine advantage of a local manufacturer over a franchise reselling a catalogue that gets revised every year.

If shades already exist in the building, ask early. If the original fabric and header are still available we can match them; if they are discontinued, the honest answer is usually to standardise a floor or an elevation rather than chase a match that will fail again next time. We will tell you which situation you are in at the survey.

Motorized and scheduled

Motors on a schedule beat relying on occupants, particularly on a west facade where the shade needs to be down before the sun arrives rather than after somebody complains. Hardwired is the right answer during a fit-out while the walls are open; battery is the retrofit answer on an occupied floor. See motorized systems.

What we will ask you at the survey

Four things, and they decide the specification more than any fabric preference does. Which elevations the problem rooms are on, because a west face and a north face want different cloth. What the complaint actually is — glare, heat or appearance — because those three pull in different directions. Whether the space is occupied and whether the work can happen in hours. And whether there is any existing shade in the building we should be trying to match, or whether this is the moment to standardise and stop chasing a discontinued header.

Common areas and conference rooms

Blackout or room-darkening in conference and presentation rooms, because a screen loses to reflected daylight long before the room feels bright. Drapery and top treatments in lobbies, where acoustics and appearance both matter. Drapery and layering and cornices and valances.