Video Highlights:
00:11 – Let’s talk about a Roller Blind is a Roller Blind is a Roller Blind
00:40 – What an uneducated consumer would do
01:00 – What is a roller blind tube?
01:35 – Different sizes for your roller blind tubes
01:50 – 38mm standard tube
02:07 – 45mm heavy duty tube
02:31 – 49mm super duty tube
03:09 – The 60mm giant tube and the 80mm killer tube
03:30 – When to use the 5 different sizes of tubes
03:40 – Why use bigger tubes for wider blinds?
03:57 – The phenomenon of the V-ing fabric
04:10 – V-ing explained
04:50 – Being wise in buying roller blinds
Hi, I’m Jason from the company Blockout Blinds and I hope you’re having a fantastic day. Today I’m going to be talking about a roller blind is a roller blind is a roller blind.
You think I’ve gone nuts right? Well maybe I have. But look, what this is really about is roller blind tubes. Now most people would think that a roller blind is a roller blind is a roller blind but what they don’t understand is that there’s a lot of components in the blind that can be compromised to get the price down. And to the consumer looking at the blind, if they are not educated, they really would not have a clue that one blind is different to the other before they make the purchase. Now this comes down to the thing I’m talking about, which is, roller blind tubes.
What’s a roller blind tube? I hear you ask, great question. Here I have a roller blind. You might have seen this in other videos that I’ve done. It does get around a bit. This is the tube inside the blind that the fabric rolls up onto. Now it’s made of aluminium, it’s an aluminium extrusion. Of course, when the blind is up, you have a bracket at each end and it has to support the weight of the blind. Now what most people don’t realise is that the roller blind tubes come in different sizes. What sizes? Well rather than pick up different tubes and show them to you. I’ve actually just put together a quick little diagram here explaining what the different sizes are. Let’s just go through them very quickly. The standard tube which is a 38mm tube is the one you saw on the blind I just showed you. It’s the standard one and we use that on blinds up to 2.1 meters in width, up to that width, they’re fine. Then once we get over to the 2.1 meters, we go on up to the 45 mm, what a name, heavy duty tube. Not only is it thicker in diameter, but as the sizes go up, the actual aluminium component itself, is also thicker. So that’s the 45 mm tube. Then once we get to 2.7 meters and over, we go on up to the 49mm super duty tube. So we already have three different sizes. Now, at Blockout Blinds, we will put these tubes in automatically to your blinds and it’s just already included in the price. Now, once you get over 3.3 meters wide for a roller blind, you’re starting to get pretty big and depending on the drop of the blind, which is the length or the height, would determine what we need to do next. Also, the weight density of the fabric. So after the 49mm super duty tube, we then have the 60 mm giant tube and then the 80mm killer tube. Of course, they’re not really called the killer or giant tube but rather than just calling them 60 or 80, I thought why not throw a word in there.
So as you can see, we got 1,2,3,4,5 different tube sizes. The first three are the main ones we use. On the more rare occasion, we use the other two bigger sizes. You may ask, well, does it really matter what size of tube I have? Well it does. What you’ll see here is a picture of a roller blind hanging up and it’s probably around about 2.7 meters wide. And what you’ll notice, is the fabric is sort of, what would you say it, rippling in on a sort of 45 degree angle from the top and that’s a symptom in the trade that we call V-ing because it looks so like a V coming down to the blind. Why does that occur? Well, you have the blind, you have the tube and it’s quite wide, the wider it is, the more tendency it has that the tube wants to sag. Once the tube sags, the fabric then gets distorted and has to “V” to accommodate it. So that example there shows that the tube probably is not big enough or thick enough in diameter for the size of the blind and for the weight of the fabric.
So that’s the tubes! So next time you’re out buying roller blinds and you’re sort of thinking well I’ve got two companies here, my blinds are bigger than about 2.1 meters, but this one seems to be substantially less for a similar type warranty and fabric, you may want to ask what size are my rolls (tubes). That could be the difference In price because once you get to these 49 and 45 mm tubes, from the 38 mm, the price does start to climb up considerably. So don’t compromise on your tubes or your rolls, because you’re going to end up with an ugly looking blind at the end of it.
So there you go, you know all about roller blind tubes now and I hope that has been informative for you so until next time, have a great day!
