Benefits of Cellular/Honeycomb Shades

Honeycomb shades, also known as cellular shades, typically generate polarizing views from homeowners as a window treatment choice.  Cell sizes ranging from 3/8 inch to 1-1/4 inches can result in lots of repeat visible horizontal fold lines which some consider distracting and busy.  Furthermore, many big box stores sell low quality, disposable grade honeycomb shades that fail to retain their structure after a year, resulting in negative image about this product category.  However, like all products, there are different grades and quality of material, construction and mechanism.  Custom quality cellular/honeycomb shades that are measured and installed correctly on a window looks like there were planned and designed from the beginning to be part of a window with a perfect fit.  We at Trendy Blinds sell custom honeycomb shades that have a limited lifetime warranty.

When there are multiple decision-makers for window coverings, honeycomb or cellular shades quickly get eliminated as on option without further investigation.  We believe, honeycomb or cellular shades have merit as a solution in certain applications and should not be completely eliminated as a possible solution for certain window application (while perhaps not a solution for the whole house).

Well known benefits of cellular/ honeycomb shades include:

1. Energy Efficiency: Honeycomb shades are renowned for their exceptional insulation properties. Their unique cellular construction creates air pockets that act as a barrier between the indoor and outdoor temperatures, helping to keep your home cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. This can lead to energy savings by reducing the need for heating and cooling.
2. Light Control: Honeycomb shades offer various levels of light control depending on the opacity and fabric used. You can choose from sheer, semi-sheer, semi-opaque, and opaque options to achieve your desired level of privacy and light filtration.
3. UV Protection: Cellular shades can block a significant amount of harmful UV rays from entering your home. This UV protection helps prevent fading of furniture, flooring, and other interior furnishings, which can extend the lifespan of your belongings.
4. Privacy: Depending on the opacity of the fabric you choose, honeycomb shades can provide varying degrees of privacy. Opaque options offer complete privacy, while semi-sheer or semi-opaque shades provide some privacy while still allowing diffused light to enter.
5. Sound Insulation: The cellular structure of these shades also provides some degree of sound insulation, reducing outside noise and creating a quieter and more comfortable indoor environment.
6. Child and Pet Safety: Many honeycomb shades come with cordless or motorized options, making them safer for homes with children and pets. Cordless shades eliminate the risk of entanglement and strangulation hazards associated with traditional corded window coverings.
7. Aesthetically Pleasing: Honeycomb shades have a clean, modern look that can complement various interior design styles. They come in a wide range of colors and patterns to match your decor.
8. Easy Maintenance: These shades are relatively easy to clean and maintain. Regular dusting or light vacuuming with a brush attachment is typically sufficient to keep them looking clean and fresh.
9. Versatile Design: Honeycomb shades are available in various configurations, including single-cell and double-cell options. Double-cell shades offer enhanced insulation and energy efficiency due to their extra layer of cells.
10. Customization: You can customize honeycomb shades to fit your specific needs and preferences. From choosing the fabric type and color to selecting the operating system (cordless, top-down/bottom-up, motorized, etc.), you can tailor them to your liking.

Overall, honeycomb shades are a versatile and energy-efficient window treatment option that can improve the comfort, privacy, and aesthetics of your home while potentially saving on energy costs.

Where should we apply cellular/ honeycomb shades?

With the above listed advantages of cellular/ honeycomb shades, the best areas to apply this product may include:

1. French doors to cover glass portion: The compact size of these shades including the top cassette, and the ability to hold down the bottom bar, makes it an ideal outside mount operable shade solution to provide privacy, light control and outside view (when desired) for French doors. Holding down the bottom bar prevents the shade from swinging while opening and closing the door.

2. Sidelight windows: Typically next to the front or back doors of a house, sidelight windows are tall and narrow and often have shallow depth, limiting product options for inside mount. Again, cellular shades have a more compact profile and can be manufactured very narrow due to the lifting mechanism, it will work and operate fine for such windows.  It will also have virtually no side gaps between the shade and the window jambs, thus providing crucial privacy need for such windows.

3. Bay and Bow Windows: With the compact cassette and the minimal gap between the shade and end cap of cassette, the gap created when adjacent cassettes butt up at an angle is reduced.

4. Skylights: A manually operating cellular or honeycomb shade is possible using a telescoping Sky Pole up to 9.5 ft long. Motorize option is also available including with hardwire powered solution to eliminate the need for recharging motor batteries.

5. Speciality Shape Windows: cellular shades can cover a wide range of unique speciality shape windows including: Perfect Arch Half Circle, Triangle, Palladian, Quarter Circle, Eyebrow Arch, Full Circle, Elongated Arch, Non-perfect Circle (oval), Hexagon, Octagon, Trapezoid and Angle Top/Angle Bottom window shapes.

6. Shallow depth window where inside mount is desired: Inside mount shade solutions still possible for windows with very shallow depths of 1 to 1.5 inches when using cellular/ honeycomb shades. Many older homes in Ontario and the Greater Toronto Area have windows when very little depth for inside mount of other types of blinds and shades.  With outside mount, the shades need to be wall mounted above the window and will project further out from the window, which may not be desirable.

To see if cellular/honeycomb shades may be right for your windows contact Trendy Blinds today.