Innovations in window treatments may seem a bit silly to consider. However, the window treatments industry is very large, and there are many large companies with engineers dedicated to product enhancements. What seems like a boring group of products, which can be bypassed if desired, is actually a thriving dynamic industry full of product innovations. These special product changes are not only limited to new colors, but they also include new control systems. Roller shades are a traditional product in window coverings, one which goes back to before the turn of the century. With internal springs to help retract them, pull shades have finally met their match, the chain, or clutch, drawn roller shades.



Roller shades made with springs would be lowered manually, either by the pulling down of the roller shade or a tassel attached to the bottom of the shade fabric, to lower them. To raise spring roller shades, one would tug at the bottom of the shade, or if there is a tassel- tug the roller shade tassel. However, one can see that there would develop problems in roller shades that are manually manipulated.

Roller shades could become dirty with this regular touching. Roller shade fabric can rip or become otherwise damaged with this constant pulling. Finally, roller shade control springs can break over time, cause roller shades to not roll up properly, sometimes not allowing them to be controlled at all, without consumer intervention.

So, to address this, engineers and designers in the window coverings industry have developed new control systems for roller shades. These systems are called chain-driven, or clutch based. Roller shades controlled by these new controls would be manipulated by the pulling on the front, or back, of a chain hanging from the top of the roller shade. This chain can be made either from plastic, or metal, and both are strong products.

Chains made from plastic are actually stronger and more durable than that of the metal kind, due to the strong cord that runs throughout the chains. However, many prefer their roller shades to be controlled by metal chains. In the end, both are high quality, and roller shade manufacturers usually only choose based on price; they mostly consider quality or performance, so they have good intentions in making quality roller shades.

The benefits of chain controlled roller shades are many, however, we wish to focus on a few here in this article. The first such benefit is more exact shade positioning. Consider how it was to adjust a spring roller shade to an exact height. When positioning spring shades, you always have to accept the spring's ?opinion? on where to leave it. However, when chain roller shades are what you have, you can set the height of the shade to be exactly where you want it.

Another benefit of chain roller shades is that the roller shade fabric can stay in the same great condition as when it was installed. This is because you will no longer need to physically touch the fabric on the roller shade to raise it or lower it. This can add years of life and beauty to the roller shades. Imagine that you no longer need to wash finger prints off your roller shades- all because you have a control chain instead.

Roller shade chain systems are also much more durable, and stronger, than the spring systems of the past. This is because of different types of springs in the roller shades. The new styles of springs are built into a sealed case, and the purpose of the springs is to resist the shade from sliding. That is not much different from what you had in a spring roller shade, but the difference is that the spring roller shades are not reliant on the same weak springs as in older spring shades. The new roller shade systems have special designs to allow them to control larger shades- often as big as 8 feet wide and 10 feet tall. These large roller shades would never have been possible with spring roller shades.

So, if you want roller shades to last longer, stay cleaner, or be large enough to cover your large windows- in a single roller shade, you should consider chain controlled roller shades. They will provide the long life and beauty that you want in your window treatments. Imagine that, innovations in medicine also work for longer life and beauty. Now, chain roller shades are like a cure for your roller shade ills.