Cellular & honeycomb blinds for a genuinely insulated room

A Cape winter on Welgemoed's slopes brings weeks of grey, damp weather, and a Cape summer afternoon on the same window can run hot even with sunscreen fabric doing its job. Cellular blinds don't fight either extreme with brute force — they buffer it, the way a good jacket does, using trapped air rather than blockout alone.

The honest version of the energy pitch

Single cells suit milder rooms; double cells do the more serious thermal work — cooler in a hot spell, warmer on a cold morning, and quieter too, since the cell structure absorbs sound as well as heat. We'll keep the claim qualitative rather than promise a percentage nobody can back up: genuinely more comfortable, and easier on whatever's heating or cooling the room.

Where they earn their keep in a Welgemoed home

• Bedrooms and nurseries — blockout cell fabric gives real darkness with the thermal bonus built in, useful on both a hot January night and a cold July morning.
• Rooms above a garage or a north-facing study — exactly the spots that run either too hot or too cold on a sloped stand with uneven insulation.
• Skylights and shaped windows — the cell structure holds its shape on an angle, so gable ends and roof glass aren't excluded from the same thermal treatment.

Operation

Top-down/bottom-up control gives privacy at the bottom with light and sky still visible at the top — useful for street-facing windows on the lower stands. Cordless and motorised operation are both available, and the stack is the slimmest of any blind when fully raised.

What a cellular blind costs

Cellular blinds sit above a flat fabric on price because the honeycomb is insulating as well as shading — useful on a slope house that swings from a hot afternoon to a cold evening. The installed rate is R1,500 to R2,800 the square metre corded or cordless, and R3,000 to R4,800 motorised. Double cells, blockout linings and top-down-bottom-up head rails all sit near the top of each band.

Narrow openings are charged at a minimum, because the head rail and the visit cost the same whatever the width. Use the bands to plan a budget; the number per window comes out of the free measure, in writing, before anything is ordered.