Solar Shades

Solar Shades in Shelbyville

Glare control that keeps the view, openness factor explained

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Quick Answer

These questions cover how this product actually behaves in a house rather than in a photograph. Light, privacy, operation and durability all look different once something has been hanging through a full year.

  • Service: Solar Shades for Shelbyville homeowners
  • Service area: Shelbyville, IN and surrounding areas
    • Honest structure: the measure happens on a normal appointment, the factory takes two to five weeks to build your order, and then we install. Service work on something already hanging moves much faster because nothing needs fabricating.
  • Insured and bonded
  • Serving Shelbyville, IN since 2008
Solar Shades Services

Expert Solar Shades for Shelbyville Homes

Solar shades are for glare, and the four production communities on Shelbyville's edge have the worst of it. Bear Run, Isabelle Farms, Summerfield and Twelve Oaks all sit on open former farmland with immature planting and full sun on every elevation, while the rest of the city hides under 50 to 120 year old canopy. Isabelle Farms runs eleven plans from 1,354 to 3,198 square feet, and the larger ones put 22 to 28 openings against that unshaded sky. A solar fabric keeps the view and the daylight, cuts the glare on a screen, and slows the fading of what's inside the room.

Openness factor is a trade off and never a feature. A 10 percent fabric preserves the view and lets in the most glare. A 1 percent fabric kills glare and turns the view milky. 3 and 5 percent are where most people land. Whatever number you pick applies in both directions after dark: with a lamp on inside, a solar shade shows silhouettes to the street, so bedrooms and street facing bathrooms need a second layer or a different product. That matters most in the West Side Historic District, where houses sit on town lots with the sidewalk close to the front elevation. And a solar shade slows fading rather than stopping it. The National Fenestration Rating Council puts ultraviolet at roughly 40 to 60 percent of fading damage.

When to Call

Signs You Need Solar Shades

If you notice any of these in your Shelbyville home, it is worth booking a measure. None of it is urgent, and none of it fixes itself either.

The kitchen island is too bright to work at

The room heats up long before the thermostat notices

Patio glass throws light across the whole room

A sunroom is bright to the point of squinting

Art on one wall has started going pale

Afternoon glare washes out the television

Sheer curtains do nothing about direct sun

Office screens are unreadable by mid afternoon

You squint through a video call at two o'clock

You keep closing blinds and losing the view

Our Process

How Shelbyville Window Treatments Handles Solar Shades

Every job follows the same five-step process. Transparent, thorough, and done right the first time.

1

Elevations walked and ranked

2

Openness chosen per window

3

Written scope and total price

4

Shades hung and squared

5

Full travel and tracking checked

Real Project Photos

Solar Shades in Shelbyville

Photographs from real solar shades jobs completed by our crew in Shelbyville and surrounding areas.

Custom shades measured and installed in Shelbyville
Scope of Work

What Solar Shades Includes

Every Shelbyville job is documented item by item. Here is what the crew covers.

Every elevation walked and written down, because a west window and a north window don't get the same openness

Openness factor chosen per opening, 1, 3, 5 or 10 percent, rather than picked once for a whole house

Samples held against the actual glare at the hour that room is actually a problem

Fabric color decided alongside openness, since dark yarns read the view and light yarns bounce more light back at you

The view you'd be giving up shown to you through a real sample before the order, not described in words

Night behavior explained plainly, because with interior lights on the shade works in the other direction

Heat expectations set honestly, including what an interior product can't do once sun is already through the glass

Fade language kept accurate, since NFRC puts UV at roughly 40 to 60 percent of fading damage

Three widths and three heights per opening plus a corner-to-corner square check

Mounting depth measured for the tube, the brackets and a cassette if the roll is being hidden

Roll direction set, with reverse roll used where the fabric needs to stand off the glass

Light gap per side disclosed, and flagged as larger on shades over 120 inches or past a 4:1 ratio

Wide sun-facing spans reviewed for coupling so two tubes track together across one opening

Chain side chosen per window, with cordless and motorized offered where a chain doesn't suit

Every continuous cord loop unit gets its tensioner anchored rather than left hanging as a loop

Layering discussed where one fabric can't handle daytime glare and nighttime privacy at the same window

Hembar matched to the fabric so an open weave hangs straight instead of waving at the bottom

Each shade run full travel on install day and checked for centered tracking before sign-off

Pricing

What Solar Shades Cost in Shelbyville

National category figures put stock shades near $60 to $600 a window and custom-fabricated shades roughly $250 to $2,600. Those are published national ranges rather than a quote for a house in Shelbyville. Solar shades sit in the middle of that band and the openness number itself barely moves the price. What moves it is the weave and the yarn: a basic vinyl-coated polyester screen costs less than a fine-yarn or a metalized-backed fabric, and width drives everything as usual. Hiding the roll in a cassette adds. Motorization is priced separately, nationally $300 to $1,500 per window installed. Shelbyville Window Treatments works from measured openings and real elevations in Shelby County, never from an average.

By Product

How Solar Shades Differ by Product

Every product in this trade behaves differently in a room. Here is what that means for this work.

1 percent openness: The tightest weave we normally hang. It cuts the most glare and gives up the most view, so the outside reads as a soft haze rather than a scene. Specify it on hard west glass where the afternoon is genuinely unusable.

3 percent openness: Strong glare control with some view left. It's the choice for a home office facing west or south where screens have to be readable through the afternoon, and it's the one people are usually happiest with on the worst window in the house.

5 percent openness: The everyday middle. It keeps a usable view of a yard or a street while taking the hard edge off direct sun. This is the default we start from on most openings before a specific elevation argues us up or down.

10 percent openness: The most open weave, which means the best view out and the least glare control. It suits a north or east window where you want the fabric mostly for daytime privacy and some sun softening rather than for fighting an afternoon.

Dark fabric colors: Charcoal and bronze absorb light rather than scattering it, so the weave holes read as small clear windows and the view through is noticeably better. The tradeoff is that a dark fabric holds more heat at the glass line.

Light fabric colors: White and beige reflect more solar energy back out and keep the fabric cooler, but they scatter light across the weave, which washes out the view and can produce its own soft glare. It's a real choice, not a color preference.

Reverse roll on solar fabric: Rolling the fabric off the front of the tube stands the screen off the glass by an inch or so, which keeps it clear of hardware and lets a little air move in the space behind it. Useful on hot southern exposures.

Cassette headbox: A closed box hiding the tube, which matters more on solar than on other fabrics because an open roll of screen fabric looks like exactly what it is. It also keeps dust out of the weave sitting on top of the roll.

Motorized with a sun sensor: A motor plus a sensor that lowers the shade when the sun actually hits that elevation, or an astronomical timer that runs to sunrise and sunset. It's the version of this product that works when you aren't home to run it.

Layered with a room darkening shade: A second tube on a dual bracket carrying an opaque fabric behind or in front of the screen. The solar shade handles the afternoon, the second shade handles the night, and neither one gets asked to do a job it can't.

Light Control

See What Each Fabric Does To The Light

Pick a fabric below and the window updates. It's a drawing rather than a photograph, so read it as a rough guide to what each family does in a Shelbyville room, and to what it doesn't do.

Fabric type

Sheer, 10 percent openness

Ten percent of the weave is open, so you keep the view and most of the daylight. Glare drops a little. After dark, once your lamps are on, someone outside can read shapes through it, which is why this belongs on a view window rather than a bedroom.

Openness factor is printed on the fabric card, so you can compare one line against another before you order anything.

Keeps the viewNot private after dark

Solar, 5 percent openness

The usual pick for a west window or a covered porch. You can still read the yard through it, glare comes down noticeably, and the fabric intercepts a good share of the sun before it reaches you at four in the afternoon.

It also cuts the UV landing on floors and furniture. NFRC puts UV at roughly 40 to 60 percent of fading damage, so this slows fading rather than stopping it.

View and glare controlSlows fading

Solar, 3 percent openness

A tighter weave. The room goes dimmer and the view drops back to an outline. Choose it where the sun is the problem and the view is second, which around here usually means a west wall in July. That's a common call on this side of Indianapolis.

Openness affects how much you see out, not how private you are. A 3 percent fabric still shows silhouettes at night.

View becomes an outlineStrong glare control

Solar, 1 percent openness

Close to a solid fabric with a little view left in it. This is the strongest glare control in the solar family.

The trade is that it darkens the room on a gray January day too. Indianapolis averages a January high near 36F and the light is flat, so think about how the room reads in both seasons before you commit.

Darkest solar optionDim on gray days

Light filtering

No view through it. Daylight comes through the face diffused, so the room stays bright without a hot spot across the television or the kitchen island. This is the default for living spaces.

It isn't private in reverse at night. With the lamps on and the sun down, silhouettes still show.

No view through itBright without the glare

Room darkening

A denser fabric, usually with a liner behind it. Most of the light coming through the face is gone.

Light still arrives around the edges on an inside mount, so a room darkening shade gives you a dim room rather than a dark one. If someone in the house sleeps during the day, say so at the measure and we'll scope it differently.

Dim, not darkEdges stay bright

Blackout

The fabric itself passes essentially no light. What you'll still see is the perimeter. Lutron publishes an inside-mount light gap of about 3/4 inch per side on its Roller 20 and 64 shades, along with a standard factory deduction of 1/16 inch per side, and shades over 120 inches tall or past a 4:1 height-to-width ratio get larger gaps than that.

So if you need a genuinely dark bedroom, that gap has to be dealt with on purpose, either with side channels or by going outside mount. We tell you which one your opening can carry while we're still standing in the room.

Dark facePerimeter needs a plan

Openness factor is a measured fabric spec, so you can compare it line to line. The category names are not measured. One maker's room darkening can behave like another maker's light filtering, which is why the sample books come to the measure and get opened in the room they're going in, at the hour that room has the problem.

Common Questions

Solar Shades FAQ

Questions we hear most often from Shelbyville homeowners considering solar shades.

Start at 5 percent and adjust by room. Bear Run sits on open ground off William Garrett Way with a select few homesites facing water, and M/I Homes builds seven Smart Series plans there from 1,460 to 2,875 square feet. A 5 percent fabric on the sun elevations cuts the worst of the glare while keeping the view across the open lots readable. On a north facing room go to 10 percent, because there is little glare to fight and you would only be dimming a room that is already soft. Where somebody works at a screen all day, 3 percent. We bring samples and hold them up in the actual room.
Almost none, and this is the disclosure people wish they had heard first. A solar fabric works by being an open weave, so it lets light through in both directions. During the day the brighter outside overwhelms the view in, and you feel private. After dark, with lamps on, that reverses completely and the room reads as silhouettes from the street. In the West Side Historic District, where houses sit on town lots on the original grid with sidewalks close to the front elevation, that matters more than it would on an acre. For those rooms we pair a solar shade with drapery or specify a dual roller instead.
It depends whether the complaint is glare or temperature. A solar shade cuts the glare and the direct beam while leaving the view intact, which is what you want in a Summerfield great room off Bluebonnet Place. A cellular shade traps air in its cells and does more for temperature: Department of Energy and Oak Ridge National Laboratory testing recorded up to 15 percent savings on total heating and cooling energy against a bare window. Indianapolis averages a July high of 85.2 degrees, so both loads are real. In a west room that gets unbearable at four in the afternoon, we sometimes run both on the same opening.
It will slow the fading. It will not stop it, and we will not say otherwise. The National Fenestration Rating Council attributes roughly 40 to 60 percent of fading damage to ultraviolet light, which means the remaining share comes from visible light and heat that no shade fully blocks. A tighter openness factor helps more than a loose one. So does keeping the shade down during the hours the sun actually hits that elevation, which on Shelbyville's cardinal grid is predictable to the hour. If a specific rug or a piece of art is the concern, tell us where it sits and we will spec around that opening.
Dark fabrics preserve the view and control glare better. Light fabrics reflect more heat and keep the room brighter, but they scatter light and wash out what you're looking at. In practice, a charcoal or bronze at 3 or 5 percent gives the clearest view out of a house looking across the open ground at Isabelle Farms or over the 180-plus acres at Blue River Memorial Park. A white or beige reads better from the street and keeps the elevation uniform. If a homeowners association ever raises the street facing color, note that no recorded covenant on window covering color was found anywhere in Shelbyville.
Not on the arch itself, which is worth saying plainly. Shelbyville's post-1990 subdivisions carry standard production transom and arched units above the main openings, and a roller mechanism needs a straight, level tube. An arched top cannot take one. The usual approach is a roller on the rectangular opening below and either a fixed fabric panel shaped to the arch, a shutter panel cut to the curve, or leaving the arch uncovered because it sits high enough not to cause glare at eye level. We measure the arch anyway, so you can see the options priced rather than being told it is impossible.
It's the percentage of the fabric that's open space between the yarns. A 5 percent fabric is 95 percent solid and 5 percent holes. That single number sets the whole tradeoff you're buying, because the holes are what let you see out and the solid part is what cuts the glare. Lower openness means more glare control and less view. Higher openness means more view and less glare control. There's no fabric that gives you both, and anybody who tells you otherwise is selling rather than measuring.
Usually lower than people expect. A west elevation in Shelbyville takes direct low sun through the worst part of a summer afternoon, and a 10 percent fabric there will not cut it. We'd normally be at 3 percent, sometimes 1 percent if the room is a home office where screens have to stay readable. Understand what that costs you: at 3 percent the view out is real but muted, and at 1 percent the outside becomes a soft haze rather than a scene.
Darker, by a clear margin, and it surprises people. A charcoal or bronze yarn absorbs light instead of scattering it, so each opening in the weave behaves like a small clear window and the view through stays crisp. A white or beige fabric scatters light across the weave and washes the view out, sometimes producing a soft glare of its own. The counterweight is heat: a light fabric reflects more solar energy back out through the glass, while a dark fabric holds more at the window.
Yes, and this is the disclosure that saves arguments later. A solar shade works by having more light on one side than the other. During the day it's brighter outside, so you see out and nobody sees in. After dark with your lamps on, that reverses exactly: you see your own reflection and somebody on the sidewalk sees into the room. It's physics, not a fabric flaw. If a room needs nighttime privacy, you need a second fabric on a dual bracket.
They help at the window and they do far less than the marketing suggests. Here's the honest mechanism: by the time an interior shade is doing anything, the sun's energy has already come through the glass and turned into heat inside the room. A screen fabric absorbs and re-radiates some of that, and a light-colored fabric reflects a share back out, so you feel a real difference standing near that window. An exterior product intercepts sun before it gets in, which is a fundamentally better position. That's the difference.
It slows it. NFRC attributes roughly 40 to 60 percent of fading damage to ultraviolet light, with the rest coming from visible light and heat, so no interior fabric ends the problem. Solar screens block a substantial share of UV and cut visible light too, so a hardwood floor or a leather chair in front of south glass ages noticeably slower behind one. What we won't tell you is that a solar shade protects anything completely, because it doesn't, and the fabric only works while it's down.
Reasonably, and it depends on the openness. At 1 or 3 percent, someone standing outside in daylight sees a screen rather than a room, and that's genuine daytime privacy. At 10 percent, a person close to the glass can make out shapes and movement inside. So openness is doing double duty here: it's your glare setting and your daytime privacy setting at once. What it never provides is privacy after dark once the lights are on inside.
Because you'd be paying for a view you then throw away. The whole reason to buy a solar shade instead of a room darkening roller is that you want to keep looking outside while the glare goes away. At 1 percent the outside is a haze, which is right on a brutal west window and wrong on a north window where there was never much glare to fight. Buying openness room by room is how this product earns its price, and it's why we walk elevations before quoting.
Mechanically nothing. A solar shade is a roller shade, same tube, same brackets, same clutch or motor. The difference is entirely the fabric: an open-weave screen designed around a published openness percentage instead of a fabric designed around opacity and appearance. So the decision tree is different. On a roller you're choosing how much light to block. On a solar shade you're choosing how much view to keep while cutting glare, which is a genuinely different question.
They do, and a slider is often the best case for one, since patio glass throws afternoon light across an entire room and you don't want to lose the view of the yard. The things to plan are width and clearance. A wide opening may want two coupled tubes running on one line so they track together, and the hembar has to clear the door handle and the track at the bottom. Reverse roll helps where the fabric would otherwise foul hardware in the opening.
Usually, and the fix is about angle as much as fabric. Screen glare comes from a bright source reflecting off the display, so what matters is cutting the intensity of the light behind and beside you. A 3 percent fabric on the offending window normally does it, and 1 percent handles the worst west exposures. Where it doesn't work is when the sun is low enough to come in under the hembar, which is why we sometimes extend an outside mount lower rather than going tighter on the weave.
Yes, on a dual bracket, and it's the honest answer rather than a way to sell two shades. One bracket carries two tubes at the same opening. The screen handles the afternoon while keeping your view, and an opaque fabric drops at night for real privacy or for sleeping. Trying to get both from a single fabric always disappoints in one direction. The pair needs mounting depth, so we measure for it at the start instead of adding a second shade later.
On a bank of sun-facing windows, it's the version that actually gets used. A sun sensor lowers the shade when that elevation takes sun rather than when you remember, and an astronomical timer runs to sunrise and sunset through the year. Installed motorization sits nationally at $300 to $1,500 per window. Budget for batteries as an ongoing item: Hunter Douglas states PowerView battery life is about one year, and that's the cost people are least often told about before they sign.
Better than most fabrics, since these are engineered for exactly that. Vinyl-coated polyester screens are the workhorse and they hold color and tension for years on a hard exposure. What ages first is usually the edge that sits exposed on the outside of the roll rather than the body of the fabric, and very fine yarn fabrics are less forgiving than coarser ones. Keeping the shade down through the hottest hours protects the room, which is the whole point of owning it.
Areas We Serve

Solar Shades Across Shelbyville

We measure and install in every one of these Shelbyville neighborhoods. Each has its own page with the build eras, window conditions and mounting notes for that section.

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Office
1417 Commerce Avenue, Indianapolis, IN 46201
Hours
Mon-Fri 8a-6p
Service Area
Shelbyville, IN and Surrounding Areas

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Call (317) 999-5154
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