As the UK’s increasingly regular summer heatwaves begin, now is a great time for window and door installers to provide homeowners with a solution that will help keep their homes cool in the form of integral blinds.
According to Morley Glass, the UK’s largest manufacturer of bespoke ScreenLine® integral blinds, an IGU complete with an integral blind and solar control glass can reduce heat transmission to such an extent that the temperature difference between outside to inside is cut by up to 9° Celsius. This level of heat reduction is maintained over the lifespan of the company’s Uni-Blinds® units, giving homeowners a long term solution for reducing overheating risk as climate change impacts and summer temperatures gradually rise.
All Uni-Blinds® integral blind systems offer heat reflection, with certain colours and types being particularly effective. The blind’s functionality can be paired with the advanced solar control glass option that Morley Glass offers for maximum protection in strong sunshine. This glass has a microscopically thin coating applied to the inner face of the glass to reduce solar gain whilst also preventing heat loss at colder times of the year.
As integral blinds are permanently sealed within the IGU, they cannot become damaged or attract dirt or dust which affects the longevity and visual appearance of traditional blinds, curtains and external solar shading systems such as external shutters, brise soleil and awnings.
Ian Short, Managing Director of Morley Glass, said: “June 2026 has seen a large part of Britain and Europe affected by another intense heatwave, which understandably means more and more homeowners are turning their attention to how to keep their homes cool. This is quite a reversal in traditional thinking for many UK consumers who have up to recently been heavily focused on the opposite – insulating our homes to keep warm – especially as we’ve seen energy prices spike.
“As the window and door industry is well versed in selling the benefits of heat retention and the promise of warmer homes in deepest winter, offering solutions for reducing solar gain and preventing overheating for a large part of the year can seem like a contradiction. However, cooling is going to be a bigger part of consumer purchasing decisions in future, and integral blinds offer installers a valuable market opportunity to provide a product that ticks both boxes.”
While ScreenLine® integral blinds are best known as a solution to provide privacy, one of the main reasons for their development by Pellini S.p.A. back in the 1990s was to offer an alternative to damage-prone external shutters, which are widely used in houses and apartments across mainland Europe.
In addition, such is the effectiveness of ScreenLine® integral blinds at keeping homes cool during strong sunshine that they also negate the need for power-consuming air conditioning systems. These are increasingly being considered for use in domestic properties with potential consequences for the UK’s carbon reduction targets, raising concerns amongst policymakers.
For more information visit morleyglass.co.uk
