ᐅ Experiences with "thermal" curtains or fabric roller blinds for heat insulation?

Hello everyone,

Recently, there have been many discussions in various threads about "thermal insulation in modern houses." Keeping the heat out during summer seems to be an even bigger challenge nowadays than preventing heat loss in winter.
Venetian blinds, roller blinds, awnings / sun sails, or even building an overhang? There are different preferences here, which is completely understandable.
But something I haven’t heard from anyone yet is that, for example, in the upper floor children’s rooms on a sunny summer morning, they simply close a "thermal curtain" to prevent the rooms from heating up throughout the day. It makes sense to use a lighter-colored curtain that reflects the sunlight the most. Accordingly, unlike a fully lowered roller blind, it should let in enough light so that the children can play in their room during the day without needing to turn on the lights.

Has anyone installed such special thermal curtains as heat protection and can share their experiences with them?

With Venetian blinds, I see the "office building" look as a disadvantage, and with roller blinds the room gets too dark when they are almost fully lowered. I don’t want to restart the Venetian blind versus roller blind debate here. The focus is primarily on curtains. Or maybe on those double-layered fabric blinds used inside? Do they keep the heat out?

Thanks in advance
ludwig88sta

Curtains let the heat in. Thermal insulation must work from the outside.

Blinds:
1. In summer, you rarely need to lower the blinds all the way down. The sun is quite high.
2. Rooms with multiple windows on different exterior walls don’t need to have all windows closed at the same time. For example, one on the east and one on the south.
For us, it’s never so dark that we need artificial lighting when we are at home.

I think shading, in terms of timing and how far to lower it, can also be controlled electronically.

*Addition: At the current stage, I consider an automatic awning or a sunshade sail as the preferred solution for heat protection on the ground floor during the day. At night, roller blinds would provide privacy, insulation against cold, and some security against break-ins.
However, my focus now is on the rooms on the first floor on the south side. A sunshade sail is probably not suitable there, right? That’s why I’m thinking about thermal curtains or thermal internal roller blinds that still allow some light in during the day but keep the heat out.

Or are there sunshade sails that can cover both floors?

*Edit [USER=9254]@haydee if you have children’s rooms upstairs with only one south-facing window, unfortunately your second point no longer applies. Otherwise, you are of course right.*

It’s probably exactly as @haydee already mentioned:

That’s why it really needs to be an automatic awning / sunshade outside the windows,
instead of attractive honeycomb blinds like DUETTE, for example.


Or a Venetian blind (raffstore) running below a glazed aluminum frame?

If there is only one exterior wall in the room, this won’t work. It depends on the design and is something to keep in mind.
With a traditional layout, the ground floor typically has the open-plan living area, and the upper floor contains the children’s bedrooms, which require natural light. Bedrooms and bathrooms are secondary in priority.

By "that," do you mean the awning/sunshade on the terrace?