Based just three miles outside Manchester City Centre we are ideally placed for window covering projects in commercial properties such as shops, retail units and office workspaces in all the central business and shopping districts of the city. We have had lots of experience working with facilities managers and property managers providing made to measure blinds and curtains for external windows and internal glazed partitions in a wide range of commercial buildings. We have also been able to use our experience and knowledge to give practical advice to guide a wide range of non-property professionals, who are managing workspaces and retail environments as part of their roles, and who have found themselves responsible for finding suitable shading and privacy solutions to ensure the condition of stock, the productivity of work teams, and the functional comfort of customers and visitors are not being adversely affected by UV light, glare or public view.
Free Consultations for Commercial Blinds and Curtains for Manchester City Centre
Whatever your commercial blind or curtain project in Manchester City Centre we would be delighted to help you choose the ideal solution for your environment. Just get in touch and we can bring our samples along to your building and discuss some options with you. Just give us a call on the number above or click the button below to fill out our contact form for a call back.
Our track record of work in office buildings means we have lots of experience and knowledge to share that we can use to help clients who are trying to understand the negative effects that solar glare, UV light and overheating are having on workplace productivity and business profitability. The heat and sunshine at the start of the 2018 summer in particular has prompted a lot of property managers to consider the business case and benefits to be gained from undertaking a project to install shading solutions for their workplaces. Problems with solar glare and overheating, not typically thought of as high agenda issues for most businesses based in Manchester, and so not worthy of special investment, have continued for so many weeks, that colleagues at work have suffered a lot of discomfort.
Like many of our clients, we at Chorlton Blinds are wondering if the climate here in Manchester has indeed changed and we now need to think differently about our buildings. If the trend continues, there is a possibility that in the coming years valid business cases will be based on frequent warm and sunny summer conditions which will justify not just investing in internal shading solutions, but also in more effective and more expensive external shading installations, as often seen abroad in sunnier climates, but that still rarely specified on new buildings or retrofitted to older stock in the UK.
Most of the office shading solutions we recommend at the moment are for solar glare and are internal ‘screen’ fabrics which are now available at much more affordable prices than when first introduced to the market. These types of fabrics are available in a range of ‘openness’ ratios usually expressed as a percentage( eg 3%, 5%) which indicates the amount of daylight that is still able to pass through the fabric when the blind is closed. It is because of this ‘openness’ that screen fabrics are the most effective at controlling glare whilst maintaining some natural light. When closed glare is eliminated, but even at these low percentages quite a clear view out is maintained as the brain can fill in the gaps in the image that the eye is not able to capture.
Another benefit of screen fabrics is that they can be considered low maintenance when compared to venetian blinds which have a deserved reputation for catching dust and requiring frequent awkward and time consuming cleaning. Likewise a single piece of screen fabric is also much easier to clean than the many vanes of a vertical office blind, particularly if using a vacuum cleaner.
That’s not to say that we don’t fit venetian or vertical blinds to offices in Manchester any more. Many of our clients still prefer the versatility they offer with their open, close and tilt functionality. Some clients particularly like the retro look that venetian blinds can give to an office design scheme. Take a look at the offices in the popular US drama ‘Madmen’ to see what we mean. We think this is where a lot of the inspiration for currently popular retro office design has come from.
