ᐅ How often do you use your roller shutters?

Franky1927 schrieb:

To be honest, I don’t really see the advantages of electric ones either. The straps disappear behind the curtains and can be lowered in 0.5 seconds (0.5 sec) and raised in 1.5 seconds (1.5 sec).

Well, I only operate my roller shutters manually when necessary. The rest is handled automatically by the program. They go up in the morning at/before/after sunrise and down in the evening. For me, this is conveniently controlled via a Shelly flush-mounted switch. It runs completely automatically—even when I am on vacation. Try doing that with straps.

Franky1927 schrieb:

To be honest, I don’t really see the benefits of electric blinds either. The straps disappear behind the curtains and can be lowered in 0.5 seconds and raised in 1.5 seconds.

It will always be like this: those who saved money by not choosing electric blinds will always defend that decision.
Personally, I would never have saved there. Probably 84% wouldn’t either, since 84% use blinds daily. Shading in summer with straps? No thanks. And I hope the old clichés soon disappear—“It worked fine without it before” and all that—well, we could also just live in a cave again, right? That worked pretty well too.

If someone honestly says, “I wanted to save on the electric blinds” or “on the external venetian blinds,” then please just say that openly, and not always “It’s just as good.” It’s not. Maybe some undecided reader will see these posts and think, “Oh, external venetian blinds are overrated,” but that’s not the case.
Fortunately, the poll results speak clearly.

WilhelmRo schrieb:

It will always be like this: those who saved money by not installing electric blinds will always defend that decision.

Not us. This is one of the few things we changed in our second house. In the first house, we had roller shutters with straps. I can only justify that by saying it was our first house and our budget was limited. We had to save somewhere. But we definitely did it differently in the second house. So far, we haven’t used the shutters extensively, but I found the straps visually quite distracting. Not every window has curtains, and those straps weren’t exactly attractive.

Belt? Definitely not, mainly because of the thermal bridge and mechanical wear. Anyone who slams the blind down within 0.5 seconds (half a second) will soon be facing repairs.

xMisterDx schrieb:

My in-laws have neighbors like that; we call them “the vampires.”
As soon as a ray of sunshine breaks through the clouds, the roller shutters go down...

Of course, you can do that... but do you really want to sit in the living room in dim light during summer?

You don’t always have to lower roller shutters completely.
But that’s exactly the issue that Venetian blinds (external blinds) address.

ypg schrieb:

No idea why these are so hyped, but all the houses with these around us rattle annoyingly.

There’s no rattling in this neighborhood. Are you referring to storm events?

In general, wider slats are of higher quality/more stable than narrow ones, and you should not skip guided rails. Our window specialist did not even offer cable guidance. In this neighborhood, I haven’t seen a single house with cable-guided blinds.

kati1337 schrieb:

No, we didn’t. It’s one of the few things we changed in our second house. In our first house, we had roller shutters with straps. I can only justify it by saying it was the first house and our budget was limited. We had to save somewhere. But we really did it differently in the second house. Although we haven’t used the shutters extensively so far, I found the straps visually quite disturbing. You don’t have curtains on every single window, and the straps just weren’t very attractive.

This was something the first consultant from a homebuilding company advised me to consider: Include the features that are difficult to change later and save on those you can easily replace. For example, a washbasin, washstand, or faucet can be changed quickly and easily, but retrofitting electric roller shutters is complicated. That’s why it was clear to us from the beginning that the shutters would be electrically operated. Also, because of the possibility to automate them, although I have since realized that I don’t really need that as much as I initially thought.

WilhelmRo schrieb:

It will always be like this: those who saved money by not installing electric shutters will always defend that decision.
My opinion is that I would never have cut costs in this area. Apparently 84% wouldn’t either, since 84% use shutters daily. Shading in summer with manual straps? No thanks. And I hope those old sayings die out soon like “It worked fine before without them” – well, people could also live in caves again – that worked fine once too, right?

If someone honestly says “I wanted to save on electric shutters” or “I wanted to save on external blinds,” then just say so. Don’t claim “it’s just as good,” because it isn’t. Maybe an undecided reader comes across these posts and thinks “Ah, external blinds are overrated,” but that’s not the case. Fortunately, the poll results speak clearly.

Although the poll refers exclusively to roller shutters.
And I think everyone has to decide for themselves what they want and judge based on their lifestyle habits. I personally wouldn’t want external blinds, even if I had enough money for them.