Roller blinds built for a slope with extreme summer sun

Sunscreen answers the west-facing glass

Cape Town's summer sun sets well south of due west and keeps dropping right through the afternoon, and on Higgovale's upper stands there's often nothing across the street to interrupt it — no overhang shades glass the light is arriving from underneath. A sunscreen roller, usually 3–5% openness, is the fabric that answers that without giving up the mountain view: it cuts the glare and most of the heat load while keeping the sightline open. Lower percentages block more heat and glare at the cost of a softer view; most west-facing living rooms up here land at 3–5%. The load is not the same everywhere in the Bowl — the west-facing rooms we measure in Oranjezicht often have mature trees taking some of it, and in Gardens, closer to town, the buildings and street trees break the sightline before the sun reaches the glass.

Blockout, and the double-roller answer for a view worth keeping

Bedrooms want the opposite problem solved — full dark, whatever the mountain or the street is doing outside. A single blockout roller does that on its own. A double roller (day/night) pairs a blockout fabric with a sunscreen on the same bracket, so the room keeps a filtered view by day and goes properly dark at night without swapping blinds. Blockout fabric also works as a genuine thermal layer against both the summer heat load and a cold, wet-winter night.

Fitted for a slope with extreme summer UV

Cape Town's summer UV index runs into the extreme band — strong enough that fabric fading and UV degradation are a real, mostly-summer-leaning problem here, not a minor one. We specify UV-stable fabrics on the elevations that take the worst of it, particularly the north and west glass that Higgovale's architect-renovated homes tend to run large. Chain and cord tensioners are fitted as standard on anything corded, and on a heritage sash window we template around the existing joinery rather than forcing a standard bracket onto it.

What a roller blind costs on this slope

Guides per square metre, installed, so you have a number to think with before the consultant arrives. A manual roller in blockout, sunscreen or light-filter cloth comes in between R1,000 and R1,600 per square metre. A stock-colour blockout is near the bottom of that; a 3% sunscreen in a UV-stable wide fabric, or a pair of fabrics stacked on the same bracket, is near the top.

Motorised, it comes to R2,500 – R3,800 per square metre, taking in the tube motor, the wall switch, remote or app control, and commissioning on the day. A minimum charge applies to very small openings: a narrow pane still needs its own brackets, its own tube and the same trip up the ladder. And a range is not a quotation: the figure that binds is written against each opening after the free measure.